Don Bassingthwaite

The Killing Song

CHAPTER 1

Vennet d’Lyrandar stood with his eyes closed and surrendered himself to the wind. He let it buffet him, cool against the bare skin of his torso, let it pull at his long hair and push on him until he leaned. The breeze whistled into his pointed ears. You grow stronger every day, Vennet!

The half-elf, former captain of the elemental galleon Lightning on Water, smiled and answered. “Just wait,” he said. “The power of my dragonmark grows. Soon I’ll have you dancing to my will.”

Dancing? the wind asked in polite disbelief.

Vennet’s smile grew sharp. “Do you think you could resist the Siberys Mark of Storm?”

The wind had no answer for that. Its force eased. Their conversation was over for now. The wind was fickle. Sometimes it would answer, sometimes not. But Vennet had told it the simple truth. When his mark had grown into its power, the wind would be compelled to obey him. An early flush of power warmed him. He opened his eyes.

At his feet, the edge of the rough terrace on which he stood dropped away. He looked straight down into the dark depths of the canyon between Dura and Northedge, two of the plateaus on which Sharn had been built. The City of Towers soared high overhead-reaching up and up toward a narrow sliver of sky that had turned red with sunset. Across the width of the canyon and up and down its length as far as he could see in the gloom, the huge bases of the towers spread out like the roots of an enormous forest. Night had already fallen in the lower city. Lights shone in a swarm of bright specks, lit by those who needed lanterns and cold fire to see. Around Vennet, the district of Malleon’s Gate, inhabited mostly by goblins, hobgoblins, and other creatures who were at home in the night, remained conspicuously dark.

He would rather have been amidst the heights of the towers, up in the open air where the wind was at its strongest, where the other members of House Lyrandar moved with the wealthy and powerful of Sharn and Breland. He belonged among their number. Soon, he told himself. Soon I’ll be with them.

He flexed his arms and felt the hot skin across his back and shoulders stretch tight. He could feel his dragonmark growing, transforming into a powerful Siberys mark. Such a thing was supposed to be impossible-centuries of lore said that a Siberys mark never manifested on anyone already carrying a lesser mark. Vennet almost laughed. He’d joined the cults of the Dragon Below in search of power, and power he’d received. Nothing was impossible for the dark lords of Khyber. The mark of Siberys was a gift from the master. When it had completed its transformation, there would be no more hiding. He would come forward and take his place as the greatest scion of Lyrandar that the house had ever-

“Vennet! Vennet, where are you?” Dah’mir’s voice interrupted his reverie. There was an edge to the oil-smooth tones. Dah’mir wasn’t pleased with something.

A lesser creature might have been afraid, but the Master of Silence had burned fear out of Vennet’s heart. “Here!” he called back. Only a few moments later, Dah’mir settled out of the shadows onto the terrace beside him. As he had for most of the time since they had arrived in Sharn, he wore the form of a black heron. His majestic true form would have caused too much excitement and attracted too much attention when his plans required stealth and discretion. The bird was still a dragon, however. Vennet bent his head to his master.

Dah’mir’s acid-green eyes flashed. “Speaking with the wind again, Vennet?”

Vennet was abruptly aware of his naked torso. He turned away from the canyons and reached for his shirt, weighted down by a rock so it wouldn’t blow away. “Yes, master,” he said. He winced as the fabric of the shirt, as fine as he’d been able to get his hands on, scraped across his irritated shoulders. His growing dragonmark might have been a gift, but it also itched unbearably. “What do you need? What do you want me to do?”

When he’d first met Dah’mir, the dragon had possessed a human form that allowed him to walk easily among the lesser races. With the same power that had granted Vennet his Siberys mark, the Master of Silence had taken Dah’mir’s human form away from him as a punishment for failing the daelkyr. Vennet had become Dah’mir’s emissary to the world, his face and hands in Sharn. It was a role he played with relish, a service to the Dragon Below-a step on his path to glory.

“I want you to go to our host,” said Dah’mir. “Tell him to prepare.”

Vennet’s heart caught in anticipation. “We’re ready? So soon? But the plans-”

“Plans can be adapted. Give our host the details he needs. I will wait no more than a few days. My master waits for his new servants, and I will wear this body no longer than I must.” Dah’mir shook his wings. “Nothing must go wrong now.”

“What could go wrong?”

Dah’mir fixed him with a glittering eye, and Vennet felt his elation vanish. “Never ask that question in jest,” Dah’mir said. “I thought myself invulnerable and I was wounded. I will not allow it to happen again.”

“But Geth, Dandra, and Singe must be dead,” Vennet protested. “Hruucan or Tzaryan Rrac-”

“There’s been no word from Hruucan and no news of him either. If Hruucan failed, then Tzaryan Rrac wouldn’t have thrown his life away.”

“But we don’t know they’re alive-and they couldn’t know we’re in Sharn.”

Dah’mir’s bill clacked. “We don’t know they’re dead. And they seem to have a way of knowing things they shouldn’t. Learn, Vennet. Learn and make plans. I have made arrangements for our enemies.”

He spread his wings and hopped up onto the crumbled remains of a wall, lifted his head and gave a whistling call. Within moments, another heron flapped out of the shadows and settled beside him. It looked similar to Dah’mir’s heron form-black feathers and green eyes-but it was subtly smaller and its feathers were ragged with a greasy sheen to them. Perhaps a dozen of the birds had accompanied them to Sharn, the remnants of a once larger flock. Vennet had often wondered if the herons’ similarity to Dah’mir was more than just coincidence. They were no ordinary birds; the one perched beside Dah’mir met the dragon’s gaze fearlessly, and it looked as if the two black birds were conversing. After a moment, the heron let out a call, spread its wings again, and flew off into the night. Other winged forms followed. Vennet watched them fly out over the raw canyon, then up among the towers until they vanished from sight.

“Plan carefully, Vennet,” Dah’mir said. “I will not fail now.”

CHAPTER 2

From the surface of the Dagger River, among the wharves that lined the base of the cliffs on which it was built, Sharn was a sight to inspire awe. When the sun shone, the City of Towers was a shining monument, soaring into the heavens, the unthinkable height of its massive spires pointing like spears at the underbelly of the sky. As the ragged ship that carried the name White Bull came alongside one of the wharves and mooring lines were thrown to waiting dockworkers, however, the sun wasn’t shining. The sky was heavy with clouds the color and weight of lead, and Sharn was less a monument than a warning. It was a looming, titanic thug, waiting to crush anyone who came within reach of its bulk.

Singe stood on the deck of the White Bull, stared up at the dark stone of the cliffs and the city, and let out his breath slowly. “This is it,” he said. “We’re here.”

To his right, Natrac grumbled and dug the point of the long knife strapped over the stump of his right wrist into the sun-bleached wood of the rail. “I didn’t think I’d be coming back here.”

Singe turned to look at the half-orc. “You could have gone to the Shadow Marches with Geth-or home to Zarash’ak.”

“Too late for that.” He twisted his arm, and a shaving of wood curled up. “Sharn. Bah. The only city in the world where you can fall to your death getting out of bed.”

Singe would have smiled if he’d felt at all like smiling. Instead he turned to his other side. “What about you?” he asked. “How are you feeling?”

Dandra’s long, black hair whirled in the breeze, tangling around the shaft of the short spear she wore strapped across her back. Her eyes were fixed on the heights of the city. “Sharn’s a big place,” she said without shifting her gaze, “but whatever Dah’mir has planned, he’s not going to get away with it. We’re going to stop him.”

Her voice was determined, but it was seldom less than determined. Singe reached over and put his hand over hers where she gripped the rail. “That’s not what I meant.”

A flush stained the bronze-brown of her cheeks. “I know.”

Determination didn’t mean that Dandra wasn’t afraid. He lifted his hand and put his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight. “We can’t face Dah’mir alone again, Dandra. We’ve been lucky so far. If Dah’mir came to Sharn to turn kalashtar into servants of the Master of Silence, we need to warn them. And if we need allies-”

“-we should start with the kalashtar elders.” Dandra sighed and leaned into his embrace for a moment. “You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make this easier. You can’t understand. The kalashtar here know … knew Tetkashtai. How are they going to react to me? I’m not Tetkashtai. I’m not even a kalashtar. I’m a psicrystal in a kalashtar’s body. I killed Medala and Virikhad. I absorbed Tetkashtai. That’s going to scare them.”

Her hand came up and clutched the yellow-green crystal around her neck that had once been her physical form and more recently a prison to Tetkashtai. Singe could feel the tension in her body. He held her tighter. “That’s all the more reason for them to listen to you,” he assured her. “Dah’mir exchanged your mind with Tetkashtai’s. Dah’mir drove Medala mad. Because of him, Tetkashtai would have destroyed you and turned on us if you hadn’t stopped her. You’re living proof of the danger Dah’mir represents. The elders have to see what will happen if we don’t stop him.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t know which scares me more, Singe: that we might not find Dah’mir or that we almost certainly will.”

“You can do this,” he murmured in her ear. “I know you can.”

Footsteps came along the deck behind them, and Singe released her. The captain’s mate, a Brelish man, stopped a pace away from them. “See to your gear,” he said. “Captain wants you off and out of the way so we can unload our cargo.”

If Singe had any lingering doubts that not all of the goods in the White Bull’s hold were strictly legal, the mate’s warning eliminated them. The ship had been the least questionable to call on the squalid port of Vralkek while they’d been there. She was far from the swift elemental galleon Lightning on Water-now lost if Vennet d’Lyrandar could be believed-but they hadn’t had much choice. Singe didn’t doubt that the ship could put on a turn of speed if she were being pursued, but day-to-day she traveled at a snail’s pace that left him grinding his teeth in frustration. Lightning on Water could have made the passage to Sharn in days. The White Bull had taken nearly a month. “Tell the captain we’ll be off as soon as the gangplank touches the wharf.” He swept into a bow. “It’s been a pleasure sailing with you. I’ll recommend you to my friends.”

His sarcasm passed over the mate without even ruffling his matted hair, and the man turned back the way he had come. Singe took another look up at the looming city, then stepped away from the rail and picked up his pack. “Come on.”

The final member of their little party waited for them by the gangplank, her lean body as tense and coiled as a hunting cat’s. Ashi was the only one of them who had never been to Sharn before. Singe wasn’t sure that she’d even believed their stories about the city until the White Bull had passed the headlands of the coast and Sharn had come into view that morning. Now she paced back and forth near the gangplank, looking out at the docks. When she turned at their approach, there was a strange mix of emotions in her eyes: the fear and wariness of a predator entering new territory, and the curiosity of an explorer on the edge of uncharted terrain.

In fact, her eyes were all that could be seen of her face. A scarf hid everything below Ashi’s eyes and a wide headband covered her from eyebrows to hairline. Virtually every other bit of her skin was covered with clothing scrounged in Vralkek. Her shirt had long sleeves and a high collar, and she wore close-fitting leggings. Her palms and the backs of her hands were covered by fingerless gloves. Singe had even covered the pommel of the sword, a bright honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals, that had first led him to suspect that the hunter might carry the blood of House Deneith.

There wasn’t a hint of the powerful Siberys dragonmark that had manifested during their confrontation with Dah’mir in the ruins of Taruuzh Kraat, tracing her body in bold and complex patterns. The mark had the power to shield Dandra from the terrible fascination that Dah’mir wielded over kalashtar. Unfortunately, Siberys marks manifested so rarely that the dragonmarked houses watched for them with proprietary avarice. Once House Deneith learned of Ashi’s mark, they were certain to seek her out and claim her for their own. Singe had served Deneith for nearly fifteen years as a mercenary in the Blademarks Guild. He knew what the house was capable of-and that his years of service wouldn’t mean a thing to Deneith.

Ashi saw him inspecting her and gave him a glower. He raised his eyebrows. “People are going to stare at you,” he said. “It can either be because of the way you dress or because of your dragonmark. And we can’t let Deneith take you.”

The glower deepened for a moment, but eased. “Betch,” Ashi cursed. “I know.” She regarded her shrouded arms with disgust, then flexed them. “At least I can still fight in this.”

“Hopefully you won’t have to-at least, not for a while.” Singe looked from the hunter to Natrac to Dandra, then drew a long breath and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Stepping onto the wharf was like walking into battle. Big, muscular men and women moved back and forth with deliberation, wielding their loads like weapons against anyone not quick enough to get out of their way. Carts and wagons rumbled like siege engines. Warforged-artificial creatures given life and intelligence by the artificers of House Cannith-trod heavily across the planks and stones as well. The sight of them only reinforced in Singe the sense that he was back on a battlefield.

Warforged had been created for only one purpose, and even two years after the end of the Last War, it still seemed unnatural to see them engaged in something as routine as manual labor. Singe’s fingers itched with old instincts, ready to draw his sword or fling a fiery spell should one of the constructs turn on him.

None of them did, of course. Still, it was a relief to make a strategic retreat from the wharf into the crowded streets that hugged the waterfront and were cut into the steep base of the cliffs. Ashi’s eyes were wide, and it seemed that every few steps, she stopped to stare in wonder at some new sight. At the warforged. At a wagon, driven by a hobgoblin and hitched to a pair of heavy tribex, their long horns blunted but still impressive. At the famous skydocks, cranes high on the cliffs lifting massive loads up to the city along lines of glowing light. At a group of five human men with faces identical down to the blotch of a birthmark.

“Changelings,” Natrac spat in explanation. One of the men must have felt Ashi’s gaze or overheard the comment, because he turned and grinned at the hunter as his features melted briefly into a duplicate of Natrac’s face. The half-orc scowled and tugged Ashi onward.

Natrac wore a tunic with a cowl, and Singe saw him pull the cowl up with a sharp motion to hide his face. Curiosity stirred in Singe. Natrac had always been close-mouthed about his past, and the only reason Singe and the others knew that he’d spent time in Sharn at all was because Bava, the half-orc’s old friend in Zarash’ak, had let a fragment of the tale slip. Singe eased closer to Natrac. “Expecting trouble?” he asked.

“Only a dead man doesn’t,” Natrac growled. “Let’s get to the upper city.”

If Ashi had been awed by the sight of the skydocks, she nearly cried out when they stepped onto one of the passenger lifts that carried people instead of cargo from the waterfront up into the lowest levels of the city. The particular lift that they boarded was a ramshackle affair, an old skydock long since retired from heavy work. The glowing line of force that connected lift and crane pulsed visibly as they rose, making the passenger platform shudder and jolt. Heedless of any danger, Ashi leaned out over the rail, staring at the ships and street as they shrank below. Between the hunter’s masking scarf and Natrac’s shrouding cowl, Singe couldn’t help thinking they made a suspicious party. When the lift reached its destination at the top of the cliffs, he slipped a few copper crowns into the hand of the goblin operating it. Singe didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to-the goblin lost interest in them with professional swiftness. He probably made a tidy profit ignoring who and what rode on his lift.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” said Natrac. “He’s going to know we have something to hide.”

“Only a dead man doesn’t expect trouble,” Singe repeated. “We’re stalking a dragon. I don’t think we can underestimate Dah’mir-or Vennet. They’ve had more time in Sharn than I would have liked. Whatever magic Dah’mir used to transport himself, Vennet, and the binding stones out of Taruuzh Kraat, you can bet it got them to Sharn faster than the White Bull.”

The district where the old lift left them was dominated by warehouses and large workshops built among and into the bases of the great towers of the city. Away from the cliff’s edge, the streets quickly became dank and dark, the air stale and still. The steady light of huge lanterns that burned with cold fire replaced the natural light along the busiest routes. Singe let Natrac take the lead, and the half-orc kept them among a steady parade of traffic crossing the district toward one of the large lifts that would take them all the way up to the airy reaches of the upper city. For all that they walked a well-traveled route, the feel of danger lurked in the air. When the sounds of violence echoed out from a gloom-choked sidestreet, Singe’s hand jumped for his rapier. He kept moving though, pushing Ashi ahead of him when the hunter would have stopped to investigate.

“Trust me,” he told her. “You don’t want to get involved. That’s the way to Malleon’s Gate. Dol Arrah would think twice about going there alone.”

The warning only brought new light to Ashi’s eyes. “Why? What’s Malleon’s Gate?”

“Once it was the heart of Old Sharn,” Dandra said. “Now it’s where the goblins-and other monsters-live.”

“Like Droaam?”

“Worse than Droaam.”

Warehouses gave way to grimy inns and taverns as they approached the lift to the upper city. It was more than twice as large as the first, and much more recently constructed. The floor of the platform looked like a disc of solid metal only a handspan thick. The rails-likewise made of metal-that ringed it were solid and polished; the roof overhead was tinted glass. The lift was also more crowded, though the passengers studiously ignored one another. Once everyone had stepped on board, a section of rail slid across to close the entrance, and the lift rose so smoothly Singe barely noticed when it started to move. Half of the disc fit snugly into a curve in the outer wall of a tower; the other half hung out over open air. Ashi jostled for the best view, and the jaded inhabitants of Sharn gave it to her. The hunter watched as stone dotted with flickering chips of dragonshards-the focus of the magic that supported the lift-rushed past on one side and the face of another tower, complete with dirty or broken windows and cluttered balconies, flew past on the other. Every few minutes, the lift would stop and the railing on one side or another of the platform would part allowing passengers on or off through arches in the tower wall or along bridges to neighboring towers.

“How far up do we go?” Ashi asked.

“Almost to the top,” said Dandra. “We’re going to Overlook district. That’s where most of the kalashtar in Sharn live.”

The nature of the view and of the passengers on the lift changed as the lift climbed. The windows they saw became increasingly cleaner and more decently covered. The balconies became larger and neater. The passengers likewise seemed more respectable. A busy marketplace marked the midpoint of their ascent. Ashi stared with such fascinated longing at the seething crowds that she almost tumbled over when the lift began moving again. All the while, the ground slipped farther away. Birds and more exotic flying creatures swooped through the canyons between towers. A flock of pigeons broke before the diving form of a hawk, swirling in a feathery storm around a passing harpy, leaving her cursing violently as she fought to climb above the birds. Finally even Ashi stopped looking over the edge of the lift and retreated toward the middle of the platform. Dandra gave her a faint smile. “You get used to the height,” she said.

“Speak for yourself,” said Natrac.

The air remained nearly as humid as it had been in the lower city. The wind was sluggish and the clouds above seemed darker than ever. They were very nearly at the top of the lift shaft when the clouds opened, and rain began to fall in dense sheets that turned the city black around them. Falling water beat against the glass roof of the lift, running in long streams into the void below.

“Wonderful timing,” Singe groaned.

Dandra shrugged. “You get used to the rain too.”

The lift slowed and stopped. The railing slid aside, and they stepped from the platform into Overlook.

Gray stone soared above and below them. A bridge leaped from the lift stop to a nearby tower, while coiling stairs climbed and descended to what passed for streets in Sharn’s upper levels. Doorways, stalls, and underpasses were all crowded with people seeking shelter from the rain. In spite of the downpour, they seemed to be in a good mood, a mix of halflings, dwarves, and humans chatting easily with friends and neighbors.

Dandra led them down one of the staircases and along the lower street through the rain. “We’re close,” she said.

While they were in Sharn, they would stay at the apartment that had once been home to Tetkashtai, Medalashana, and Virikhad. The three kalashtar had left it behind, waiting for their return, when they had accepted what they believed was an honest invitation to visit a scholar in Zarash’ak who shared their interest in the interaction between dragonshards and psionics. That scholar had turned out to be Dah’mir, his invitation a deadly lure, and the possibility of their return permanently ended-after all, Dandra and her current company were the only ones who knew that the three kalashtar were now dead.

Occupying the apartment seemed vaguely ghoulish, but, Singe had to admit, eminently practical. He could even understand Dandra’s haste to reach it when they were so close. He just wished the rain had held off a little longer. Singe looked at the sheltering citizens with envy as they hurried past.

Ashi, barely even noticing the rain, just kept looking around. “Are the streets always decorated here?” she asked.

Singe raised his head and squinted against the rain. Wet and heavy, banners hung from windows and along the faces of shops. Most were the crimson and gold of Breland, but here and there were the colors of other nations. He calculated the date in his head. “Tomorrow is Thronehold,” he said. “A celebration of the end of the Last War. We’re just in time for a-Twelve moons!”

He flung up one arm, shoving Ashi and Natrac back into an unoccupied doorway, and grabbed for Dandra with the other, pulling her back against the wall with him. None of the others spoke, sudden alarm forcing them to silence, but Dandra looked at him questioningly. Singe pointed along the street and up.

Perched on a gushing rainspout at a point where the street turned was the huddled shape of a very wet black heron. One of Dah’mir’s herons. If Ashi hadn’t drawn his attention to the banners and he hadn’t been looking up, Singe wouldn’t have seen it himself. Dandra drew a sharp breath, and Singe felt the pressure of her mind against his as she reached out in the mental link of kesh. He accepted the touch, and an awareness of her-and of Ashi and Natrac as well-blossomed in his thoughts.

Is it watching for us? Natrac asked.

Does it matter?

I think it does, said Dandra. Beyond that bend in the street is Fan Adar, the kalashtar neighborhood. I think the heron is watching the kalashtar.

Singe cursed silently and thought for a moment, then asked. Does anyone see any others?

The others scanned walls and rooftops. One by one, they shook their heads. Good, said Singe. He raised his hand, a spell forming on his lips. Dandra looked at him with alarm.

Singe, a spell will attract attention!

Not this one. Singe focused his will, crooked his fingers, and murmured a soft word of magic.

Fire magic might have been his strength, but they’d just spent weeks on a wooden ship. If the crew of the White Bull had turned on them, throwing flames around wouldn’t have been a good idea, so Singe had made certain he was ready to cast a different kind of spell if the need arose. Up on the rainspout, the heron seemed to shiver slightly, then to sag. Singe lowered his hand and stepped away from the wall. The heron didn’t move, not even when he walked right up and stood underneath it. He turned back and gestured for the others to join him. “It’s asleep,” he said. “It should stay that way for a while and wake up without even knowing we were here.”

Dandra released her hold on the kesh, and the mental link vanished. “Why don’t you use that spell more often?”

He spread his hands. “Not everything falls asleep so easily, but pretty much everything will burn.”

Dandra shook her head and led them around the corner.

It was almost as if they had entered another city. The crowds that had packed the other streets were gone, leaving only a few figures huddled here and there. Singe had a feeling that even if it hadn’t been raining, the streets in this neighborhood would have been quiet and nearly empty. The Thronehold banners, though still present, were subdued. The gray stone of Overlook remained, but the decorations that enlivened it elsewhere were different here: bright flowers in painted window boxes gave way to gray-green herbs in suspended trays, curtains in windows bore curious embroidery that Singe had only seen in Dandra’s clothing, doors carried strange signs and symbols.

“Welcome to Fan Adar,” said Dandra softly.

The few faces that regarded them from arches and stalls shared features distinct from the men and women of the Five Nations. Some had the distinct exotic beauty-long and thin with angular features-that marked a kalashtar. Others had the rounder, softer features of humans, though they and the kalashtar were alike enough that they might have been distant cousins.

In a way, Singe supposed, they were. The humans were Adarans; Dandra had said that the far-off nation of Adar had been the birthplace of kalashtar eighteen hundred years before and that kalashtar and Adarans still lived close together. All had dark hair and eyes, with bronzed skin tones that ranged from the same rich brown as Dandra’s to a pale duskiness. Most wore clothes and sandals similar to hers as well.

Dandra kept to the middle of the street, not returning the dark-eyed gazes. Singe thought he saw recognition in some of the faces they passed, but no one called out and as soon as a kalashtar or Adaran turned to him, Natrac, or Ashi, even the merest hint of curiosity vanished into blank solemnity.

“Real welcoming sorts, aren’t they?” said Natrac under his breath.

Dandra turned her head just enough to reply. “They’re insular, that’s all. Adar is a place of refuge. Kalashtar and Adarans don’t trust outsiders easily.”

“Even here in Sharn?” Singe asked her. “Dandra, if this was a village and we were passing through here during the war, I’d say the locals were scared of something.”

“If Dah’mir’s herons have been watching the neighborhood,” said Ashi, “maybe they are.”

Singe felt his skin crawl at the suggestion. “Let’s get to the apartment before we start speculating,” he said. “We may need to revise our-”

The shrill howl that erupted to his right stopped the words in his throat. Singe whirled to face a flash of movement and glimpsed a man-a kalashtar-as he leaped from behind a closed-up stall, his eyes wild, wet hair plastered against his head. Ashi’s sword flashed and Natrac’s knife-hand rose, but Singe was closest to the attacking man. He fell back a step, grabbing for his rapier.

The kalashtar was on him before he could draw it, hands outstretched. Singe twisted and one hand missed him, but the long fingers of the other grabbed at his sword arm. There was a silver-white flash, a crack like lightning striking close, and sharp pain burst through the wizard’s arm. He shouted, wrenched his arm free, and planted a kick in the kalashtar’s belly.

The man staggered but came surging back, hands reaching once more. There was no room for Singe to draw his sword, no time for him to cast a spell. Moving quickly, he pushed himself inside the kalashtar’s reach, grabbed his arms at the wrists, and forced his hands away. The kalashtar, however, fought with the strength of a madman. Singe yelped as he was heaved off his feet. Natrac, Ashi, and a glimpse of the street-kalashtar and Adarans alike staring in shock-blurred past him.

He ended up with his neck locked in the crook of the other man’s arm. The smell of his unwashed body was thick in Singe’s nose and mouth. The kalashtar screamed again, and his hand darted at Singe’s face. Silver-white light shimmered around his fingers.

“Ashi! Natrac! Get back!”

A sharp drone rose like a chorus. Out of the corner of his eye, Singe saw Dandra’s face tense with concentration.

Whitefire burst around him and the kalashtar man both, enveloping them in a heat so intense that took Singe’s breath away. He flinched, an automatic reaction and nothing more. The ring he had inherited from his grandfather consumed the magical fire that licked at him. The kalashtar, however, had no such protection. His howl turned into a gasp as the heat sucked the air from his lungs. The hand before Singe’s face fell away, the pressure on his throat eased. Singe tore himself free and the kalashtar swayed, then slumped to the ground. His wet clothes steamed, but the kalashtar was otherwise uninjured.

Singe bent over with his arms on his knees and breathed in cool air before glancing up at Dandra. “Thanks,” he began, but paused as he saw the expression on her face.

She was staring at the fallen man. Singe looked down at him as well. He was as dirty as he had smelled. The rain was making streaks in a face smudged with grime. His clothes were dirty and wet too, but otherwise in good repair. His features carried the slightly stretched look of someone who hadn’t eaten for several days. He had been living rough, Singe guessed, but not for very long. Probably less than a week.

“I know him,” said Dandra, “or at least Tetkashtai knew him. His name is Erimelk. He’s a scribe.” She knelt down beside him. “This isn’t like him.”

“There’s a surprise.” Singe straightened and twisted his arm to see where Erimelk had grabbed him. Blood stained the wet cloth in two big patches. “Twelve moons! He hits hard for a scribe.”

A hiss of warning from Natrac brought Singe’s head up again. The half-orc stood with his knife-hand held low and ready. Ashi kept her sword unsheathed.

The few kalashtar and Adarans who had been lingering on the rainy street were closing in on them, their faces hard with concern. Singe let loose a curse under his breath. He could imagine how the attack must have looked. They weren’t making a good first impression! “Dandra?” Singe said softly with a glance over his shoulder.

Dandra was still kneeling beside Erimelk, worry on her face.

Before she could rise, before the clustered locals could draw too close, though, a shout rose up. “Erimelk! Light of il-Yannah, you’ve found him, Tetkashtai!”

The locals paused and turned as new figures came hurrying up the street and pushed past them. There were four of them, three men and a woman, all kalashtar. They drew up short as they saw Natrac’s and Ashi’s weapons. The one who had called out, a big man with coarse gray hair and a worn face, was the first to step forward again. “It’s all right,” he said, holding his hands out flat and gesturing for the hunter and the half-orc to be calm. “We’ve been hunting for him. I’m sorry if he’s caused you-ah.” His gaze stopped for a moment on Singe. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s not serious,” Singe said. He glanced at Natrac and Ashi and nodded at them. They lowered their weapons. By the time he had looked back to the old kalashtar, however, the other man had already moved past him to Dandra.

“This is a poor homecoming. I’m sorry, Tetkashtai. Come away from him. You can’t have hurt Erimelk more than he’s hurt himself. We’ll look after him. Here, stand up.”

The kalashtar was holding an arm out to Dandra when his words sank into Singe’s head. You’ve found him, Tetkashtai … I’m sorry, Tetkashtai.

Twelve bloody moons, Singe thought. He can’t tell what’s happened.

The same thought must have worked its way through Dandra’s head. As rapidly as a cloud drifting past the sun, her face brightened and became confident. “Thank you, Nevchaned,” said Dandra, her voice unfamiliar and haughty as she fell into the role of her creator. “What happened-”

The old kalashtar cut her off with a shake of his head as he helped her to his feet. “The poor man,” he said sadly, and Singe noticed that he left the statement hanging to wave forward the two men who had come with him. The woman, the wizard realized, was moving among those who had been on the street when the attack occurred, calming them and sending them on their way. Before the men bent to pick up Erimelk’s unconscious form, the small crowd had already begun to disperse.

The men’s touch, however, must have roused Erimelk. The scribe’s eyes snapped open wide and for an instant he seemed to stare straight at Singe-then his eyes rolled back and the tones of a strange wordless song rippled from his lips, clashing but somehow still musical. “Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-”

The two kalashtar holding him stiffened. Nevchaned reacted instantly, pulling his hand from Dandra’s and reaching across to clap it across Erimelk’s mouth, muffling the song. “Take him to my shop, Fekharath,” he said swiftly. The men holding Erimelk began to move and Nevchaned went with them, hand still over the scribe’s mouth. The woman fell in beside them, staring at Erimelk. Nevchaned twisted around enough to nod a farewell to Dandra. “A poor homecoming,” he called back to her, “but it’s good to see you again. Are Virikhad and Medalashana …?”

“Still in Zarash’ak,” Dandra lied.

“Ah.” Nevchaned threw a brief glance at Singe and the others. For a moment, Singe thought he saw suspicion and disappointment in the old man’s eyes, then Nevchaned gave Dandra another nod and said, “Patan yannah, Tetkashtai.”

“Patan yannah, Nevchaned,” Dandra answered coolly.

And then they were alone on the wet street once more.

CHAPTER 3

Geth’s, shoulders ached from the exertion of paddling. It was a good ache, though. It warmed him from the inside, just as the sweat on his skin cooled him from the outside. Everything was in balance. The quiet dip and splash of his paddle, in rhythm with Orshok and Ekhaas’s, was a soft echo to the sounds of unseen marsh birds and animals stirring in the gathering dusk. Only the steady passing of the reedy banks marked their progress across the smooth surface of the river, cutting against the slow, strong current. Neither shifter, nor orc, nor hobgoblin spoke.

Zarash’ak, where they had acquired the small boat, was three nights travel behind them. The camp of the Fat Tusk tribe was, according to Orshok, still a night ahead. Geth’s mind drifted, at ease.

When they’d first separated from Singe, Dandra, and the others at Tzaryan Keep, he’d had found it difficult to sleep at night. He hadn’t been the only one. The message they carried was urgent. News of Dah’mir’s schemes, of the daelkyr-remembered in Ekhaas’s stories as the Master of Silence-imprisoned beneath the mound of the Bonetree clan, had to reach Orshok’s old master, Batul. The druids of the Gatekeeper sect had to be warned of the ancient evil that was reaching out for new power.

As the wastes of Droaam and then the swamps of the Shadow Marches passed beneath their feet, though, the rhythm of travel had blunted that frantic edge. They could only go so fast and no faster. Both Ekhaas and Orshok knew magic that could speed their journey and they used it, but even magic had limits. They’d fallen into a cycle of traveling hard from the late afternoon until just after dawn-all three of them could see as well at night as at day-then sleeping just enough to refresh themselves before rising and continuing on.

It was a pattern Geth remembered from his own years of wandering after he had fled the massacre at Narath and before he’d found haven in Bull Hollow. One morning as he’d taken the first watch of the day, he’d watched the rising sun chase the moons of Therendor and Dravago over the horizon and had thought back to Bull Hollow. To Adolan. What had begun as a mission of vengeance for the devastation of the village and the death of his friend at the hands of the Bonetree hunters had turned into something much larger. Confronting a dragon. Thwarting a daelkyr. It made Geth feel strangely small by comparison.

He’d wondered what Adolan would have thought of it all. He probably would have been pleased, though Geth wasn’t sure what would have pleased him more: that Geth was fighting the twisted, unnatural enemies of his ancient sect or that Geth had fought a more personal battle and confronted his own past. That Dandra, Singe, and his other allies knew now what had happened at Narath, that the terrible slaughter of a town and his old Blademarks company had been his fault.

Days and nights had passed since that morning, and Geth still didn’t have an answer.

Singe and Dandra still don’t know everything, Adolan, he thought, digging his paddle into the water once more. And Tiger’s blood, I’m fighting a dragon and a daelkyr! Who wouldn’t be scared?

There was no answer, of course, but the old collar of rune-carved black stones that had once belonged to Adolan slid around his neck with a reassuring weight.

And then turned shockingly cold.

Geth sat up straight, rocking the boat and nearly dropping his paddle. Kneeling in the center of the boat, Ekhaas grabbed for the sides and cursed. “Khaavolaar! What are you doing?” The hobgoblin twisted around to glare at him with amber eyes, a scowl on her flattened face. “Are you trying to turn us over?”

“Adolan’s collar-” Geth grunted and reached up to touch the stones. The collar was an artifact of the Gatekeepers. It had shielded him from the mental powers of Dah’mir and the hideous mind flayers in service to the Master of Silence and given him warning of danger. If it had grown cold …

To his surprise, the stones were once again warm under his fingers.

“Well?” asked Ekhaas. Her voice was both smooth and coarse at the same time, like cedar smoke, and when she wasn’t feeling patient, it could carry a vicious sting.

Geth let his hand fall. “Nothing,” he said, and wondered if it had been his imagination.

The hunting call of a marsh cat rose and fell in the twilight, and this time it was Orshok, in the boat’s bow, who sat up. The young orc tucked his paddle under one arm-Geth swore and plunged his paddle back into water to try and hold their position against the current-and raised folded hands to his wide mouth, letting out a trill of birdsong. The hunting cat answered and Orshok’s eyes went wide beneath his heavy brow.

“Ring of Siberys!” he exclaimed and snatched up his paddle again. “Geth, steer us for that leaning tree up ahead.”

Geth didn’t need further directions. Along the riverbank, a bulky figure had risen beside the tree Orshok had indicated. As they drew closer, Geth recognized the figure with surprise. It was Krepis, another orc of the Fat Tusk tribe and Batul’s elder student. He looked much the same as he had the last time Geth had seen him-big even for an orc, wearing a necklace of crocodile teeth and carrying a heavy spear-except for the long red stripes that had been painted above and below each eye. They gave him an angry look, as if he was staring in perpetual, wide-eyed rage.

Beneath the paint, however, he looked pleased to see them, though he glanced at Ekhaas with some mistrust. He stepped down into the shallows as the boat glided up, and grasped the side near Orshok, holding the boat easily against the pull of the river. Orshok asked something in the guttural tones of Orc, probably trying to find out what Krepis was doing there, Geth guessed. Krepis answered in the same language. Ekhaas’s tufted, wolf-like ears stood up as she listened. Orc, Geth knew, was just one of half a dozen languages that she spoke, but Orshok and Krepis might have been speaking gibberish for all that he could understand them.

At least for all that he could understand them on his own. He stretched a hand down and let it rest on the hilt of the ancient Dhakaani sword that was lashed to his pack in the bottom of the boat. He’d carried the sword out of the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol and with it had wounded Dah’mir. Only recently, in the caves beneath Taruuzh Kraat, had he discovered that it was even more than it seemed. Its name was Wrath-Aaram in Goblin-and it was a sword of Dhakaani heroes, forged by the same legendary Dhakaani daashor who had created the binding stones. As if the visit to those caves and the tomb of its creator had roused the sword from long slumber, he’d found that it also had powers previously hidden. In Taruuzh Kraat, he’d learned that holding the sword allowed him to understand Goblin and the vile speech spoken by creatures of Khyber. Experimentation in their travels had revealed that Wrath let him understand other languages known to the hobgoblins of the lost Empire of Dhakaan-including Orc.

The instant his fingers closed around Wrath’s hilt, Krepis’s words were clear in his ears. “-waiting here for three days. Batul had a vision that you would come.”

“But why here?” Orshok asked. He looked vaguely troubled. “Why not at Fat Tusk?”

Krepis grunted. “Because we’re not gathering at Fat Tusk. There’s a lesser river just past here. Turn up it and go until you reach a sandbank. I’ll meet you there.” He looked at Geth, gave him a hideous smile, and switched out of Orc to greet him. “See you good, Geth!” he said with a thick accent. “You bring big fights with you!”

Geth straightened up and let go of Wrath. “Good to see you too, Krepis.”

The orc heaved against the boat and sent them sliding back into the open river, then climbed back up onto the bank and disappeared into the undergrowth. Orshok slid his paddle into the water once more and looked over his shoulder. “Were you listening?” he asked.

“Of course,” said Ekhaas.

“Yes,” said Geth, putting his paddle into the water and pressing against the current. Now that he was looking for it, he could see the smaller river Krepis had told them to follow. “But I didn’t hear everything. Who’s gathering and what are those stripes on Krepis’s face?”

“They’re horde marks,” Orshok answered, his voice tight. “They mean that he’s taken an oath of war.”

They found the sandbank and Krepis. Geth was startled to see that they were far from the first to land there. More than a dozen boats-some small like theirs, others larger-were beached on the sand and still more had been dragged higher up the riverbank. Orshok started to ask Krepis about the boats, but the other orc just shook his head and said, “Come.”

They followed him along a well-worn trail, the meager packs that had seen them across Droaam and the Shadow Marches on their backs. Geth carried his great gauntlet in a bundle as there seemed little point in donning the armored sleeve in the company of friends, but he made a point of buckling on Wrath so he could reach the sword easily if he needed its abilities.

Away from the river, the ground made a slow rise, becoming slightly drier and a little firmer underfoot. The area was thick with bushy ferns, their leaves half-furled against the night, and shaded by a few trees with smooth bark and gnarled branches. Geth spotted a sentry reclining among the branches of one, tracking them with a stout bow until Krepis raised a hand and made a sign in greeting. The sentry relaxed and waved them ahead.

The shifter heard the camp before he saw it, a dull roar of activity familiar from any number of campaigns during the Last War. The rising path reached a crest and the camp spread out before them, filling a vast depression in the landscape with tents and huts and cookfires and the forms of hundreds of orcs. Krepis spread his arms wide. “The horde of Angry Eyes!” he said with pride. “Come. We find Batul.”

He led them down the interior slope of the depression and into the camp. In spite of its size, Geth realized, the depression wasn’t actually very deep-three long strides carried him from the top of the slope to its bottom. The ground within the depression was noticeably drier than that outside it, even though it clearly sat somewhat lower. Among the tents and huts, he could also make out the shapes of tall standing stones. He recognized them as markers erected by ancient Gatekeepers. “What is this place?” he asked Orshok.

“The Sharvat Vvaraak,” said young druid. “The Mirror of Vvaraak, the dragon who taught the first Gatekeepers. It’s been a sacred gathering place for thousands of years.”

Ekhaas kicked at the dirt. “This doesn’t look like a mirror to me.”

“Legend says that if you dig down, you’ll find a sheet of glass covering the Sharvat from side to side.”

Geth saw Ekhaas’s eyes light up. The hobgoblin was a duur’kala, or dirge-singer. Even through their short acquaintance, he’d discovered that one sure way of getting her attention was to mention a story or legend she hadn’t heard before. “I don’t think this is a good time to start digging,” he told her.

They were already among the temporary shelters of the camp. Every orc they saw wore the same red stripes as Krepis. Geth could guess at the reasoning behind the face paint; by adopting it, the orcs left behind any symbols of their individual tribes and took on a new, temporary identity as part of the horde. He knew members of Blademarks companies who did much the same thing. Robrand d’Deneith, his and Singe’s commander in the Frostbrand company, had insisted that once someone joined the Frostbrand, old loyalties to nation be left behind.

Any resemblance between the orc horde and a Blademarks company ended there however. The mood in the camp was festive. Around great fires, orcs and a small number of half-orcs ate and drank, sang and danced, and played wild music on crude instruments-a broken rhythm of drums played out of sequence, accompanied by reed flutes and bone rattles. The sound was infectious, and Geth found himself nodding along with it as they walked. A fight broke out ahead of them, turned into a brawl, then settled down before they had passed as the participants clapped each other on the back and went in search of something to eat. The smells of gaeth’ad drifted from more than one kettle, each producing a slightly different aroma as individual gaeth’ad masters brewed up their own version of the potent tea.

Krepis said something to Orshok in Orc, and Geth was too pre-occupied in staring around to put his hand to Wrath in time to listen in. Krepis left them and went striding off toward the center of the camp where a larger structure rose high. Orshok turned to Geth and Ekhaas. “The Gatekeepers are holding council in the sweat lodge,” he said. “Krepis will fetch Batul.” His eyes were shining and his face was flushed. Any worry he’d shown on learning of the horde was gone, washed away by a rising excitement. “Kuv! This is incredible.”

“Who do you think they’ve gathered to fight?” Geth asked.

“I don’t know, but if the Gatekeepers are in charge, it’s got to be serious. A horde hasn’t gathered under the Gatekeepers for three generations. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What about the raid on the Bonetree mound? We had three dozen orc warriors with us, and they came from different tribes.”

“That was only a raid. Look how many warriors are here!”

Geth had to agree-there were easily a few hundred warriors milling around the camp. It was an impressive sight, and he could feel the fever of it exciting him as well. Ekhaas, on the other hand, was looking at the activities in the camp with some interest, but also disdain.

“Where are the ranks?” she demanded. “How can you tell who’s in charge? Who’s looking after supply chains and rationing?”

“An orc horde wages war differently than a goblinoid army,” Orshok told her, but Ekhaas barely seemed to hear him. Her face had flushed dark as she realized that there were both male and female orcs laughing and fighting around the fires.

“Khaavolaar! Your units aren’t segregated? How does that affect discipline?”

Geth snorted. “I don’t know about discipline, Ekhaas, but I’d say it’s doing great things for morale.” He watched as a tent that a man and woman had just ducked into began to shake vigorously.

Ekhaas’s face turned a shade darker and her ears lay flat.

Word must have spread of their arrival in the camp, because people began to drift past them, then to stop openly and stare. Soon they were murmuring to one another and pointing. At first Geth thought it was because he and Ekhaas were the only non-orcs in the camp. He’d gotten used to being the only shifter present in almost any situation long ago. He squatted down to wait for Batul and would have ignored the crowd if Orshok hadn’t leaned close and whispered, “They’re talking about you.”

“I know,” he said.

“Orshok is right,” said Ekhaas. “Listen to them.”

Geth looked up. The crowds had gotten larger and closer, and there was no denying that he was the one everyone was looking at. His eyebrows rose and he put a hand on Wrath. Murmurs rushed at him.

“-led the raid that wiped out the Bonetree clan.”

“They say he killed two mind flayers and five chuul in the battle.”

“I heard he killed a dragon!”

“Is that the sword he carried out of Jhegesh Dol? By Garu’s eye, I’ll fight at his side!”

He jerked his hand away from the sword in surprise. “Grandfather Rat, what is this?” he muttered to Orshok and Ekhaas.

“I think you’ve acquired a reputation in the Shadow Marches,” said Ekhaas.

“I’m no hero.” He started to turn away.

Ekhaas slapped him across the back of his head, a swift action that brought shocked silence down on the orcs who saw. Geth whirled on her, but she bent down and thrust her face at his. “You live in Narath,” she said, “when Narath is nothing to these people. They know Jhegesh Dol. They know the raid on the Bonetree clan. You carry a sword of heroes-act like a hero!” She straightened up. “Hoor gat wee’taat kaz leshitaa sa’feh. There’s none so cowardly as a hero who will not accept glory.”

Geth blinked, then glanced at Orshok. The young druid thrust his tusks forward. “I’m proud to stand with you.”

The shifter looked out at the staring crowd and gave a slow nod to the orc who had said he’d fight beside him. The warrior looked surprised for a moment, then smiled broadly. He grabbed a wooden cup from a companion, brought it forward and thrust it at Geth. “Tag domad’ad chuf!”

“You’re invited to drink with him and his friends any time,” Orshok translated.

A warm feeling, a sensation of acceptance he hadn’t really felt since Bull Hollow, spread through Geth’s belly. He rose, took the cup, and raised it to the orc, then to all of the orcs who had gathered. “Hit them hard!” he shouted and swallowed the contents of the cup in a gulp. The liquid within was some kind of ale, bitter and warm, but far from the worst he’d ever had. A cheer went up. A cheer for him.

And what, Geth thought happily, do you think about that, Ado?

CHAPTER 4

He was just handing the cup back when there was a commotion in the crowd. A band of orcs pushed through, led by one who had to be the biggest orc Geth had ever seen. He stood a head taller than any other orc present, with shoulders wider than an ox yoke. The tusks that jutted from his jaw were bigger than Geth’s thumbs. He wore no shirt and the muscles on his torso and arms were thick and heavy, sliding and bunching under gray-green skin.

His eyes were bloodshot. He’d clearly been drinking, though only enough to make him nasty and not, Geth saw with an unpleasant feeling, enough to make fall down. As soon as the orc’s gaze fell on him, he knew what he was going to say. He didn’t even bother to put his hand on Wrath.

The big orc’s voice was a rumble. The orc with the cup fell back. Ekhaas looked intrigued. Orshok’s face paled. Geth waited until the big orc had fallen silent, then asked the druid, “He’s heard I’m tough and wants to fight me, doesn’t he?”

Orshok looked startled. “How did you know?”

“I know a challenge when I see one. What’s his name?”

“Kobus. He says fists and feet only.”

“Fine with me.” A fierce excitement was starting to burn in him. Geth unbuckled his sword belt and handed it to Orshok. Excitement rippled through the crowd and they pulled back, leaving a large clear space around Kobus and Geth. Kobus thrust his jaw forward, baring his tusks in anticipation.

“Geth,” the young orc said, “you should probably know that Kobus has had a reputation in the Shadow Marches a lot longer than you have.”

“What for?”

“Winning fist fights.”

“There’s two ways to deal with challenges, Orshok,” Geth said. “Ignore them until they go away or face them. If Singe were here, he’d ignore this. But Singe isn’t here. I am.” He felt a savage smile spread across his face and didn’t resist it. “And if I’m going to fight beside the orcs in this horde-”

“Wait,” said Ekhaas. “You’re going to fight with the horde?” Amber eyes stared at him and wolf ears stood straight. “When did you decide this? You don’t even know who they’re fighting yet.”

The watching crowd had started chanting, eager for the battle. Geth could hear some of the orcs chanting his name in a rhythmic call. The sound of it, the feeling in the air of the camp, was like drinking two big tankards of the best ale. “All right then,” he shouted over it, “maybe I won’t fight with them, but Wolf and Rat, I’m not going to have them think I’m afraid to take on a challenge!”

He turned away from her, peeled off his vest and shirt, and threw them to Orshok. The druid snatched them out of the air and pulled Ekhaas away. Geth faced Kobus, stripped to the waist just as the orc was, and flexed. There was some approval from the crowd for his muscular build, but more for the numerous scars that crossed his hairy skin. Geth let them look for a moment, then reached down inside himself-and shifted.

The ancient ancestors of shifters had been humans and lycanthropes: werewolves, werebears, wereboars, and other shapechangers. Although shifters didn’t carry either the moon-mad curse of their lycanthrope ancestors or their ability to take on an animal shape, they had inherited from them uncanny agility, night vision sharp as a cat’s, and the ability to manifest other animal characteristics. Some shifters could grow a tiger’s claws. Others could manifest a wolf’s terrible bite or sharp senses.

To the watching crowd, Geth knew, his shifting looked like nothing more than a slight tensing of his muscles or a thickening of his already thick hair, a change in his stance, maybe a sharpening in the lines of his face. The murmur of approval died back. Kobus, maybe thinking he had an easy fight ahead, shouted and leaped forward with good speed for someone so large. His right fist swung around hard. Geth let him have the first punch without resisting.

The force of the blow that connected with Geth’s jaw knocked him reeling sideways. A sharp gasp rose from the crowd-a gasp that changed into a cheer as Geth stood straight, twisted his neck, and spat a little blood into the dust. “That’s it?” he roared. “That was your best?”

He threw himself at Kobus, the rush of near-invincibility that was his inheritance from his lycanthrope ancestors throbbing in his ears. He moved fast, spinning around Kobus in quick leaps and short bounds. He blocked what blows he could, let what he couldn’t fall against his shifting toughened skin, and gave back as good as he got. A flurry of blows to Kobus’s gut doubled him over for a moment. The orc swiped at him with a fist and Geth dropped to the ground, rolled, and came up behind him with a kick to the meaty part of his leg that left him limping. He spun and slammed his elbow into Kobus’s side just above his kidney, then drove a fist straight up under his chin as he twisted around in pain. Kobus wavered … then surged back and grabbed Geth by the throat in a crushing grip.

In spite of his shifting, dark spots danced in front of Geth’s eyes. He might have been tough, but Kobus was still stronger. He swung a fist. Kobus caught it in his free hand and held him away at armslength. The crowd might have been shouting encouragement, but Geth couldn’t be sure. His ears were starting to ring. He flailed with his other arm and grabbed for the hand around his neck, trying to force it free. Kobus just tensed his arm and squeezed harder. He smiled, showing his tusks again.

Geth’s lungs burned, but he smiled back, baring his sharp teeth. A growl forced its way from the back of his throat and he swung his feet off the ground. Supported by Kobus’s own rigid arms, he drew his legs up to his chest and snapped them out in a hard double kick straight into the orc’s surprised face.

Bone crunched. The hand around Geth’s throat tightened briefly, then relaxed. Kobus swayed and fell backward, dragging Geth over on top of him. The shifter fell across the orc’s massive chest, sucking air gratefully, then pushed himself free and rose to his feet.

The roar of the watching orcs almost knocked him down again. Orshok and Ekhaas rushed to him, just as Kobus’s friends rushed to him. Geth waved the druid and the duur’kala back, though, and let his shifting slip away. It took some of the pain Kobus had inflicted on him with it, but he knew he’d still be sore once the bruises really set in. He staggered over to look at Kobus. The big orc’s face was covered in the blood that ran from a split lip and a broken nose. One eye was already swelling shut, but the other was open and it rolled toward Geth. Kobus’s face twisted and his body started to shake. His arms rose and swept aside the friends who had been trying to tend to him.

“Geth! Watch out!” Orshok yelled.

Geth just stepped up closer to Kobus, reached down, grabbed one of his arms-and hauled the orc to his feet. Blood sprayed him as Kobus’s shaking finally erupted into laughter. Geth joined in and then they were slapping each other’s shoulders and back like old friends.

“Domad’ad,” said Kobus. “Domad’ad chuf.” He started to pull Geth off into the camp.

“Wait,” Geth told him, choking on his laughter. “Orshok, can you heal Kobus?”

“Krepis will do it,” said a new voice. “We need to have a talk now.”

“Batul!” Geth pulled away from Kobus. Batul stood with Orshok and Ekhaas, wrapped in a simple blanket, his white beard and hair wet, and his parchment-fine skin plumped and slick as if he had just emerged from a very long, very hot bath. All at once the infectious excitement of the horde camp and the easy peace of long travel seemed to vanish, replaced by the long suspended urgency of their mission. Geth pushed close to Batul.

“We have news!” he said. “Dah’mir serves a daelkyr called the Master of Silence imprisoned beneath the Bonetree mound, but he’s stirring. Dah’mir wants to turn kalashtar into servants of the daelkyr because he thinks their psionic powers-”

Batul held up a hand. “Calm down,” he said. “We know. Why do you think we’re all here?”

Geth stared at him in speechless shock, then glanced at Orshok and Ekhaas. Both of them shook their heads. Geth looked back at Batul. “What? But … how?”

The old druid smiled. “Let’s find somewhere quiet and tell each other our stories.”

Ekhaas was the one who told their story. She was a duur’kala after all, and even if she hadn’t been present for many of the events that unfolded since Geth and Orshok had last seen Batul, Geth had to admit that she recounted them better than he ever could have. She ended with their separation from the others outside Tzaryan Keep, with Singe and Dandra heading east toward Sharn to warn the kalashtar while they turned west to find Batul and the other Gatekeepers. “Except,” she concluded, “that it seems we didn’t need to.”

“But I’m glad you did,” said Batul. “If only because it’s been many years since I’ve heard a story told by a duur’kala of the Kech Volaar, and I thank you for the experience.” He sat back and looked up at the dark ceiling of the tent in which they sat, his good eye seeming to contemplate the shadows while his milky blind eye stared into deeper mysteries. “Aryd the Seeress is a figure from some of our oldest legends. I know only a few of them, but the Battle of Moths … I don’t recall ever hearing such a tale, though I have heard that the circle that once stood where the Bonetree mound stands was raised to commemorate a great battle.”

“The duur’kala take care to remember what must not be forgotten,” Ekhaas said.

Batul looked back down at her. “The duur’kala would do well to remember other things as well. Like humility.”

“Easy,” said Geth, straightening up from the basin where he had been washing Kobus’s blood off himself. “We’re all friends here.”

Batul bent his head. “I’m sorry. Forgive a cranky old druid for being lectured by a child.”

Ekhaas looked like she might be ready with another sharp comment, but Geth caught her eye and glared at her. She clenched her teeth and said, “I beg your pardon. My pride wasn’t meant to offend.”

It was a pretty apology, though Geth noticed that her ears stayed resolutely erect. Batul said nothing, so neither did he.

Seated on the other side of the tent, Orshok spoke up. “Does what we learned in Taruuzh Kraat agree with what you already know, teacher?”

Batul nodded. “Yes,” he said. “That the Master of Silence is stirring. That Dah’mir hopes, by driving kalashtar mad and drawing them to the service of the powers of Khyber, to give his master servants with the psionic powers of mind flayers but without mind flayers’ vulnerability to Gatekeeper magic. Those things we knew. They’re the reason why the Gatekeepers meet in council and why the horde was summoned while we debate.” He stroked his beard. “But that Dah’mir has found new-and more powerful-binding stones to use in his plans, that we didn’t know. I’ll need to take this to the other Gatekeepers.”

Supporting himself with the stout length of his crook-headed hunda stick, the old orc rose to his feet.

“Wait, what about your story?” Geth asked. “How do you know all this? It can’t have been a vision, can it?” He tapped his cheek under his right eye to indicate Batul’s own blind eye, the eye with which the druid claimed to have occasionally glimpses of the future.

Batul blinked and shook his head. “I almost forgot. I’m sorry-so much is happening and the council’s debates …” He sighed and leaned heavily on his hunda stick. “No, it wasn’t a vision. The only clear vision I’ve had of late was your journey along the river, and even that wasn’t so clear as it might have been-I thought Singe and Dandra might have been with you, and I didn’t foresee Ekhaas’s presence at all.”

“How then?”

Batul looked up, the gaze of his good eye sweeping them, and nodded again. “Perhaps it’s best if I show you. Come with me. Leave your gear here, if you like. This tent will be yours.”

Geth pulled on his shirt and picked up Wrath. They followed Batul out of the tent. As they passed through the camp, sporadic shouts and cheers followed them. Or at least followed Geth. The shifter returned the shouts with waves and said to Batul out of the corner of his mouth, “What did you tell them about me?”

“The truth,” Batul told him. “Perhaps the rest of Khorvaire is jaded, but here in the Shadow Marches we still appreciate a hero’s story. The fight with Kobus will only add to yours.”

Geth felt a vague flush of shame. “I don’t fight for glory. How much of the fight did you see?”

“Nearly all of it. Orshok told me why you felt the need to take on Kobus.” He moved a little closer and added softly, “He said you were defending your honor so you could fight alongside the horde with pride-before you even knew what the horde was fighting.”

“I didn’t say that exactly …”

Batul shook his head. “But you said it nearly enough, didn’t you? Geth, you’re impulsive, but I know you think more than that.”

Something flickered in the back of Geth’s mind, the fleeting shadow of curiosity. He looked at the old druid sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about being aware of what you do. Have you felt the excitement in the camp?”

Geth nodded and Batul smiled. “Incredible, isn’t it? Warriors arrive in the camp and fall into the horde as if they’ve been sharing a fire for days. The council is nearly ready to make a decision and getting a dozen Gatekeepers to agree on dinner usually takes weeks of debate. We’ll march soon, I think.” His good eye flickered in the firelight. “If I were you,” he added, “I wouldn’t let anyone else know how much Wrath lets you understand.”

Batul’s soft tones vanished before Geth could even nod again. “Here,” he announced and stopped.

They stood before a large tent. Unlike the others in the horde camp, it stood on its own, separated from its nearest neighbors by five paces of open ground on all sides. Two guards whose stony faces clearly indicated that they wanted to be somewhere else stood guard at the tent flap. Their presence, however, wasn’t the only protection for the tent. Two birds-one a hawk, the other a crow, both probably bound to druids of the council-perched on the roof pole. The outside of the tent had been painted with symbols, and the ring of empty ground planted with carved poles bearing strings of bones, stones, and feathers. Some of the symbols on the tent and poles were similar to those on the stones of his collar. Symbols to repel or contain the power of the Gatekeepers’ enemies.

Unlike other tents and huts in the camp, a lamp burned inside the painted tent, casting a glow on the walls. Whoever was inside needed light to see.

Batul passed by the guards and lifted the tent flap. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said through the gap, “but there are people you must see.” He gestured for Geth to enter. The shifter ducked past the flap-and cursed, tearing Wrath free of its sheath and trying to fling himself back so fast he stumbled into Ekhaas.

Seated on a low sleeping platform, a kalashtar woman looked up at him with empty eyes. Her face was worn and thin, its angles as sharp as an over ground knife blade. Her hair, shot through with gray, was bound back and she wore an orc’s rough clothes. The last time Geth had seen her, she had been wearing the filthy remains of a fine dress and her hair been matted and wild-and she had been wracking him with pain using nothing more than the power of her mind.

“Medala!” he snarled. He pulled himself away from Ekhaas and dropped into a defensive crouch, Wrath pointed at Dah’mir’s mad servant. His heart was thundering in his chest. He heard Orshok cry out as well and managed to find words in a dry throat. “This isn’t possible. You’re dead.”

“I wish I were,” Medala said. Her voice, though grating and hoarse, was as empty as her eyes.

Batul put a hand on Geth’s shoulder. “She’s the one who warned us about the Master of Silence. A little less than a month ago, hunters from Fat Tusk found her wandering the marshes, starving. They brought her to me.”

“She’s dangerous, Batul! She almost killed both of us.”

“The symbols around the tent hold what’s left of her power in check, Geth,” Batul said calmly.

Medala gave a bitter laugh. “Be at ease, shifter. I could no more touch your mind now than I could touch the Ring of Siberys.”

She rose. Geth tensed, but she made no further move. Medala had been a tall woman, but her frame had become gaunt and hunched. “When Dandra unleashed Virikhad’s mad mind against me, he and I fought for control of my body the only way we could.” She touched her forehead. “With our wills and our psionic powers. You saw us vanish and thought us dead, but that was Virikhad’s doing. He had powers over space and he flung us … elsewhere.”

A shudder shook her body, but she smiled grimly. “My powers are over the mind. I was stronger. I was returned to the place where I had been-the Bonetree mound, though your battle with Dah’mir was long over. My battle with Virikhad, however, had broken Dah’mir’s hold over me. I fled with one thought in my shattered mind: revenge on Dah’mir and his master.” She was trembling and her voice rose. “Would you deny me that, Geth? I know from Dandra’s mind that revenge was what you sought when you came to the Shadow Marches. Will you not let me take my revenge on the evil that broke me?”

Geth stared at her trembling form in shock. Batul touched his shoulder, pushing him toward the flap and out of the tent. “Sit,” the old orc said to Medala. “Be at ease. You’ll have your revenge. The Master of Silence will be stopped.”

Eyes focused on nothing visible, Medala nodded and folded back down onto the sleeping platform. Geth didn’t look away from her until Batul had herded Orshok and Ekhaas out of the tent as well and pulled the tent flap closed after himself-then Geth swallowed. “She’s still mad, isn’t she?”

Batul gestured for them to follow him away from the tent. “I don’t think she could ever be sane again,” he said, “but when she told me about the Master of Silence, how could I ignore her? I summoned other Gatekeepers to council, and the horde was called.” The druid spread his hands. “And now you bring news to confirm what she says.”

“Do you trust her?” asked Ekhaas.

Batul turned to the hobgoblin. “No more than I have to,” he said. “But she’s powerless. The daelkyr are the Gatekeepers’ ultimate enemy. If Medala can help us ensure that one remains sealed in his prison, then she is our ally.” He glanced from Ekhaas to Geth. “What about you?” he asked. “You’ve delivered your message. Are you going to stay for the fight?”

Geth looked at the tent. He could see Medala’s silhouette-broken by the protective symbols painted on the tent wall-against the glow of her lamp. Once again, a nagging doubt flickered in his mind. He wished Dandra were there. She knew Medala, and he was certain she would have been able to tell if her lust for revenge was real. It certainly seemed to have the ring of truth to him.

But Batul was right. The Gatekeepers’ ancient duty took priority over lingering suspicion. If Adolan had been there, Geth knew what he would have done-and he knew he couldn’t do any less. The shifter drew a deep breath. “We’ll stay,” he said. He bared his teeth. “We’ll fight!”

A broad smile spread across Batul’s wrinkled face. “I knew you would.”

He turned away and flung up his arms, shouting something in Orc. All around them, warriors let out a cheer and crowded around. Mugs of ale and gaeth’ad were thrust forward. Hands slapped at their shoulders and backs. Ekhaas looked startled. Orshok looked ecstatic. Geth grabbed Wrath, trying to catch the end of Batul’s cries.

“The hero of the raid on the Bonetree fights with us!”

The roar that erupted was deafening. A rushing excitement, an anticipation that he hadn’t felt in a long time filled Geth. He drew Wrath and raised it high. The roar of the horde redoubled, and he let himself fall into it.

CHAPTER 5

The door to the apartment was locked, of course, but Tetkashtai had a trick of unlocking it with a thread of vayhatana. Dandra knew the trick too. She concentrated, spun out the invisible force with her mind just so, and the lock responded with a click. The door swung open. Dandra clenched her jaw and stepped across the threshold. Entering the apartment she had only ever seen previously as a psicrystal around Tetkashtai’s neck was even stranger than walking the streets of Sharn. The familiar surroundings seemed smaller, out of proportion. Dim, naturally. She raised the shade of the everbright lantern that was on the table. A musty odor hung in the air and it took her a moment to decide-because there had been no sense of smell as a psicrystal-that it didn’t belong there. She crossed the room and pushed open the windows. Fresh air and the scent of rain blew in.

The others entered behind her, Natrac shaking off his cowl, Ashi sputtering as she stripped off the wet scarf that clung to her face. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What happened out there? Why did it seem like they didn’t want us to know what was wrong with Erimelk?”

Singe was the last one through the door, and he closed it quickly behind himself before Ashi’s voice could carry. “I think it seemed like they didn’t want us to know because they really didn’t want us to know.” Water dripped from his hair and pulled his beard down into a point. “Who is this Nevchaned, Dandra?” His lips twitched. “Or should I call you Tetkashtai?”

The name made her flinch. “No, you shouldn’t,” she said. “Light of il-Yannah, I knew as soon as the words were out my mouth that it was a bad idea. It just seemed so easy at the time.”

“It was a good idea,” said Natrac. “They know Tetkashtai. If these people are as insular as you say, maybe they’ll say things around her they won’t say around us.”

“So we’re going to start out by lying to people we want to be our allies? Il-Yannah, I lied about Medala and Virikhad too.” Dandra tried to cover her frustration at herself by going to the cupboard where Tetkashtai and the other kalashtar had kept some towels. Like the apartment, they were musty, but at least they were dry. She passed them around.

“Nevchaned is a weaponsmith,” said Dandra. “He made her … my spear.” She touched the weapon strapped across her back. “He’s also one of the kalashtar elders.”

The wizard’s eyes widened slightly. “Ah,” he said. “So maybe not one of the best people to start off lying to.”

“No,” Dandra agreed. She shook her head. “I’ve fought Dah’mir, Tzaryan Rrac, Hruucan, dolgaunts, dolgrims, and Bonetree hunters-why does facing my own people feel more terrifying than any of them?”

Singe gave her wan smile. “Remind me to tell you about my family some day.”

“The idea of facing House Deneith scares me,” said Ashi. Dandra twisted her head to look at the hunter. “I used to be worried that they wouldn’t accept a hunter of Shadow Marches, or that they would find that I had no Deneith blood at all and I would be left without a clan. Now I worry what will happen when the time comes that they find out about this.” Ashi traced a finger down one cheek and along the line of her jaw, following the vibrant pattern of her dragonmark.

“If you don’t like the way Deneith treats you, you’ll always have a place with us,” said Dandra.

Ashi raised an eyebrow. “Then why do you worry what the kalashtar will think of you?” she asked. “You have a place here too. Aren’t we your people?”

Dandra stared at her. Aren’t we your people? She had Tetkashtai’s memories of the kalashtar of Sharn, of Medalashana as her best friend and Virikhad as her lover-but she felt closer by far to the men and women who had stood by her side over the last months than she did to any kalashtar. Her mouth twitched and a smile escaped her. “You’re always surprising me when I least suspect it, Ashi. Thank you.”

“The broshamas of the Bonetree held the wisdom of the clan,” Ashi said, answering her smile, “but I would have been huntmaster if I hadn’t turned against Dah’mir, and a huntmaster needs her own wisdom to see what’s in the hearts of the clan.”

Singe stepped back from Dandra and shook his head. “Ashi, I think I’ll almost pity House Deneith if they try to tame you. They aren’t going to know what they’re getting.”

Dandra’s smile turned into a laugh, and she struck out at the wizard with a cry of mock outrage. He caught her blow on his arm, but let out a hiss of very real pain. He twisted his arm, and Dandra winced as she saw the pink of rain-diluted blood on his wet sleeve. “Sorry.”

“It’s where Erimelk grabbed me.” Singe loosened the laces at the cuffs of his shirt and pulled back the sleeve. “Twelve moons! Look at that!”

His skin was marked by two red handprints, the skin bruised and broken in innumerable fine pricks, as if someone had beaten him with a bristles of a stiff brush. Singe looked at her. “Was that some kind of psionic power?”

She nodded. “I’ve seen something similar. It’s a little bit like the long step, but used as a weapon-under the psion’s touch, tiny portions of matter or flesh are displaced in space. It’s a weak power, but it can do a lot of damage.”

“It hurt a lot,” Singe complained. He wiped at the red marks with a towel, but the rain had washed away all but a tint of blood. There wasn’t even an open wound. Singe cursed again. “Why would a scribe have a power like that?”

Dandra frowned. “I didn’t know he did. When Tetkashtai knew him, he was more interested in his work than in developing the power of his mind.”

“I’ll bet he wasn’t insane and attacking people in the street, either,” said Natrac. “What do you think was wrong with him, and why was Nevchaned covering it up?” He looked up. “Do you think it could have something to do with Dah’mir?”

No one said anything for a long moment. Dandra suspected that she knew what they were all thinking, even if no one wanted to be the first to say it. Erimelk was clearly mad. Dah’mir wanted to drive kalashtar mad. It was too much of a coincidence to be dismissed, but it also meant that the dragon had already started his move against the community.

On the one hand, that might make it easier to present their belated warning to the kalashtar elders. On the other, maybe there was a reason the elders were trying to keep Erimelk’s madness quiet. Dah’mir intended his mad kalashtar as servants for the Master of Silence. He wouldn’t want them roaming free. If that was the case, maybe Nevchaned-and the other elders-were working with Dah’mir. The idea chilled her.

“I think,” she said, “we need to know more about what’s happening here before we approach the elders with our warning, so we know we’re talking to the right people.”

Singe, scratching his whiskers in thought, nodded agreement, but Ashi frowned. “How do we do that?” she asked.

An idea took form in Dandra’s head. An idea that didn’t particularly please her. “We don’t,” she said. “I do.” Singe’s hand paused on his chin, and he looked at her sharply, but she shook her head and continued. “Natrac was right. Kalashtar will say things around another kalashtar they won’t say around strangers. Especially if they think it’s a kalashtar they already know.” She touched a hand to her chest. “Like Tetkashtai.”

Singe’s fingers fell, but he didn’t dismiss the idea. Dandra could see him turning it in his mind, and when he spoke, she noticed it wasn’t the plan that he questioned. “Can you do it?” he asked. “You’ll be facing your people on your own.”

She drew herself up. “I thought we’d decided that the people who matter are here.”

He smiled at that. “When will you do it?”

“Tonight. There’s a place-a kind of meeting hall. The kalashtar will be expecting me to visit after a journey anyway. I’ll be able to find answers to rumors there.” She gestured around the apartment. “You can stay here if you want.”

“I think I’d go crazy just sitting and waiting for you,” Singe said. “I’ve got a better idea. There’s a small House Deneith enclave across the city in Deathsgate district I want to visit. It’s a Blademarks recruiting hall. I told Geth to send a message there when he got to Zarash’ak. We took long enough getting here ourselves that one might be waiting now.” He looked to Ashi. “Do you think you’d like to go? You’d get to see more of the city, and there shouldn’t actually be any members of Deneith proper on duty this late-you could get a little more exposure to Deneith without any risk of discovery.”

Ashi’s grin was so wide the two small bone hoops that pierced her lower lip turned sideways. “Try and keep me from coming!”

“That’s why I asked you.”

Dandra turned to Natrac. “Are you going to go too, or stay here?”

The half-orc paused in the act of drying himself, then continued. “Neither,” he said.

Singe narrowed his eyes. “What are you up to?”

Natrac gave a sigh, stopped, and glanced up. “Let’s just say that Dandra’s not the only one with places she has to go to alone,” he said. “I used to have contacts under street. They might still be around. If they are, they may have heard something. But I can’t be sure that they’re still around or that they’ll be inclined to help us.” He looked at them all. “I know you can all handle yourselves in a fight, but the best thing to do in the places I need to go is not to start a fight in the first place.”

Dandra exchanged a glance with Singe and nodded. “If you think that’s what’s best. Can you at least tell us where in the city you’re-?”

“No,” he said, stopping her. “And don’t try telling me that whatever I’m hiding, it doesn’t matter to you. This is a part of my life I don’t want back. Give me a chance to rest and dry out-I’ll go and be back before dawn.”

She frowned at him. “Can I wish you good luck?”

Natrac grunted. “I’ll take that.”

They all changed into dry clothes and lay down to rest, but when they rose, Natrac had already slipped out. There was an extra key to the door hidden inside a crock. Dandra brought it out and gave it to Singe. He embraced her without a word, then he and Ashi departed. Dandra took a brief look around the apartment and left as well.

The rain had stopped, but the streets of Fan Adar were still empty. Dandra walked from the light of one everbright lantern to the next without seeing anyone-or, thankfully, any sign of another one of Dah’mir’s herons. The need to watch for them reminded her of the time after her first escape from the Bonetree mound, when she and Tetkashtai had fled across the Shadow Marches, trying to evade the herons, Bonetree hunters, and dolgrims Dah’mir had sent in pursuit.

It was, in fact, too much like her nights on the run. Unease stirred in her. Had the streets always been this quiet, or did they just seem that way because she was-possibly for the first time ever-utterly alone? Singe wasn’t there to support her. Tetkashtai, her constant counterpart since the moment she had awakened to consciousness, was only a memory. There was no one.

She wasn’t sure that she liked it.

Sound came as she crossed a walkway and descended a broad ramp to a sunken courtyard. The courtyard itself was empty except for a statue of a kalashtar woman, her crystal eyes raised to the skies, but on its far side, a short flight of stairs rose again to the porch of a low building-the community hall called the Gathering Light. Warm light and noise escaped from the building-the light making golden lines around edges of the building’s doors, the noise drifting on the air in a haze of half-heard music and speech.

Dandra crossed the courtyard, put a foot on the lowest stair, hesitated for a moment, then pressed her lips together. You can do this, she told herself. What is it compared to what you’ve already done? She raised her chin, continued up to the porch, and pulled open one of the doors.

In her heart, she’d half-expected all activity in the hall to pause as she walked through the doorway and those gathered within turned to stare at the stranger in their midst. Her entry, however, attracted no more than idle curiosity. A few people looked up to see who had arrived. Even fewer gave her a second look. A very few, friends of Tetkashtai-or of Medalashana or Virikhad-waved in greeting. Dandra waved back but stayed near the door, trying to look as if she were searching the hall for someone while she took stock of the environment and tried to decide what to do next.

The main chamber of the Gathering Light was long and, for a structure in Sharn, relatively low. Doors to the side opened onto stairs that led up or down to storerooms and private meeting rooms. During the day, the community hall served a variety of purposes, from cultural education to physical training to quiet political and philosophical discussions. With night’s fall, however, the hall had come alive in its main purpose as a social hub of the community. Kalashtar and Adaran humans-far more of the latter than the former-mingled through the chamber, falling into clusters to share conversation, glasses of pale tea, and bits of hot food plucked from pots wrapped in braided straw. Around the outside of the room, they stood. Closer to the middle, they sat. In the very center of the long hall, a low circular stage had been set up. Four musicians sat on it, playing the wind and string instruments of Adar, and anyone who felt like it had joined in with their song. Music and speech clashed and broke over the crowd like waves on a beach.

The scene was familiar enough from Tetkashtai’s memories, but as she scanned the crowd, Dandra became aware of an odd tension in the hall. The clusters of people seemed tighter and perhaps less inclusive. Conversation was low and close, less animated than it might have been; yet the people who sang did so with such force and emphasis that it seemed as if they were trying too hard. Singe’s comments about a feeling of fear on the street came back to her. The kalashtar and Adarans gathered in the hall might not have seemed afraid, but they were far from being as relaxed as they should have been.

The longer she stood still and silent by the door, the more people were beginning to notice her presence and to stare at her with an ill-concealed wariness. She forced herself to move further into the hall, trying to spot someone to talk to, someone who might be able to tell her what was going on …

Then the choice of who to talk to was taken out of her hands altogether. “Tetkashtai-” said a voice at her side.

The fear and tension that had stretched tight in Dandra snapped. The voice, so close and so unexpected, was like a blow. She leaped away, psionic power lifting her up to hover a handspan above the ground, ready to dart or glide in any direction. She’d left her spear in the apartment, but she was never defenseless. The humming chorus of whitefire rose around her, and the people closest to her yelped and scrambled away from the sudden display of power. The young kalashtar man who had spoken her name flinched back, his eyes startled. For an instant, he and Dandra stared at each other in mutual alarm.

Dandra could feel her heart hammering in her chest. Now she really was the center of attention in the hall. Song and conversation had ceased. It took an effort to still her pounding heart and release the fiery power that had come so easily to her mind. The people her display had disturbed stared at her with open suspicion. “I’m sorry-” Dandra started to say and then caught herself. Tetkashtai had never apologized for anything. It hadn’t been in her nature.

“Sit,” she said to the nearest person. “It was nothing.”

Conversation resumed. Feeling somewhat less uncomfortable, but now vaguely guilty, Dandra sank back to the floor and faced the young man. He was just barely an adult. His face still had a youthful softness, but at the same time, his appearance was distinctive. Unlike most in the Gathering Light, his black hair had been cut short in the Brelish fashion, and he wore Brelish rather than Adaran clothing, including an open vest dyed a rich sky-blue. The wide leather bracer stitched with copper wire that wrapped around his left forearm was likewise Brelish in design, but it was the smooth black gem-a psicrystal-set into it that brought a twinge of recognition to Dandra’s mind.

Not every kalashtar was capable of creating a psicrystal, and she had a dim recollection of a young kalashtar, his hair still long, proudly showing Tetkashtai the black crystal he had fashioned. The name of the newly-formed crystal, Cano, clung to Dandra’s memory, but it took a moment longer for her to put a name to the kalashtar. When she did, she blinked. “Munchaned,” she said. “You’re Nevchaned’s son.”

“Call me Moon.” Munchaned’s voice had a self-conscious firmness, as if he were daring her to call him anything else-or as if he were trying to cover his moment of childish fright.

Dandra forced herself to keep a smile from her face. “All right, Moon. What do you want?”

“Nevchaned wants to talk. He sent me to collect you.” He jerked his head toward one of the doors that led to the Gathering Light’s private rooms.

Dandra’s eyebrows rose. “Nevchaned wants to talk to me?” she asked. “How did he know I was here?”

“The elders like to keep track of what’s happening around them when they meet. I’m the honored elders’ errand boy of the night so I get the privilege of fetching you.” He looked at her. “Are you going to come or not?”

He sounded like he would be just as happy if she didn’t. The thought was more than tempting to Dandra. Suspicion rose in her. Nevchaned and the kalashtar elders were here, and they wanted to talk to her?

She clenched her jaw and nodded. Moon looked disappointed by the answer but turned to push his way through the crowd to one of the hall’s side doors.

On the other side of the door was a short flight of stairs; at the top of the stairs was a wide landing and another door. Moon knocked heavily once and opened the door without waiting for a response. “Tetkashtai,” he announced.

Dandra caught a glimpse of a dozen or so kalashtar men and women looking up from their discussion. Nevchaned rose out of the crowd. “Thank you, Munchaned,” he said. “That will be all.”

“Can I go now?” Moon asked.

Nevchaned’s face darkened. “You have a duty tonight.”

Moon’s face took on nearly the same color as his father’s. He stepped away from the door and squatted down on the landing outside. Dandra found herself liking the young man. She might not have been able to say anything about it to him, but she could sympathize with a feeling at being trapped within kalashtar customs and expectation. She turned to him and murmured, “Keep fighting, Moon.”

He glanced up in surprise, but she kept going past him, stepping into the meeting room and closing the door behind her.

The warm air smelled slightly of jasmine, as if a single blossom had been left in the room and then removed. The kalashtar elders sat in silence on low, wide Adaran-style benches of dark wood with curled arms and a scattering of thin cushions. The atmosphere should have been calm, conducive to debate and the making of important decisions. It wasn’t. The room felt close, the faint scent of jasmine annoying. The clean lines of the benches were simply stark and barren as trees in winter-and for all that the silent elders attempted inscrutability, their eyes were dark and haunted.

It was probably the last emotion Dandra had expected to see from them.

Nevchaned bent his head over hands spread wide in welcome. “Kuchta, Tetkashtai.”

“Kuchtoa,” Dandra said. She took control of the fear that gnawed at her and forced herself to look around the room, trying to see past the haunted eyes of the elders and guess at what was going on in their minds. It seemed as if more than a few of them were trying to guess the same thing about her. Several glanced away as Dandra’s gaze met theirs; others faced her boldly, maybe even accusingly. Dandra shivered and raised a barrier around her thoughts.

Her reaction to the tension in the room must have been obvious. Nevchaned gestured swiftly to a chair that had been placed before the benches and to a low table bearing a white teapot and several glasses. “Please, sit,” he said. “You’ll take tea?”

“Yes.” Dandra sat as Nevchaned poured tea so pale it was barely tinted with color. He passed her the cup and Dandra took a polite sip. The tea had even less taste than it did color, but she forced herself to nod in acknowledgment of Nevchaned’s hospitality. He wasn’t the most senior or significant elder present-Dandra recognized a wiry woman named Selkatari and a quiet scholar named Hanamelk, both leaders of the community-but it seemed as if he had been appointed as the voice of the elders in dealing with her.

What would Tetkashtai do in this situation? Dandra lowered her cup. “You didn’t summon me here to drink tea.”

Nevchaned showed no surprise at her bluntness. “We wanted to thank you for subduing Erimelk,” he said. “Your Aundairian friend-he’s not badly injured?”

“He’s fine.”

“And your journey to Zarash’ak? It was good?”

Dandra couldn’t quite bring herself to answer the question. Tetkashtai’s journey to Zarash’ak had been a disaster. She clenched her teeth and gave Nevchaned a direct look that was as much herself as it was Tetkashtai. “You’re dancing around something, Nevchaned. Are the elders really that interested in travel stories? What do you want?”

A murmur blew through the room. Dandra saw Selkatari’s face turned dark. Nevchaned stiffened and looked around. His face took on the slightly vague look of someone reaching out with kesh. Other elders seemed to respond to the silent communication. Hanamelk gave a slow, deep nod. Nevchaned turned back to Dandra.

“We want to know why Erimelk might want to attack you and your friends,” he said.

Dandra fought down her suspicions of Dah’mir’s hold over the kalashtar. “We were in the wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose,” she said. “Erimelk looked like he could have attacked anyone. What happened to him?”

Nevchaned hesitated-and when he spoke again, he didn’t answer her question. “Tetkashtai, did he do or say anything unusual in the attack?”

She looked at him sharply. “Aside from the attack itself, the only unusual thing was the way you whisked him away afterward. What are you hiding? What do you know about Erimelk’s madness?”

Nevchaned’s expression didn’t change-but Selkatari’s did. Her eyes narrowed. “That’s a strange thing to say. It almost sounds like you know something about it.”

Dandra could have bitten her tongue, but she pushed her argument, attacking before she could be forced to defend. “And you sound even more like you have something to hide!”

“Enough, Selkatari!” Nevchaned said

But the wiry woman was already rising from her seat. “You don’t know what we face-”

“And neither do we.” Hanamelk reached out and put a hand on Selkatari’s arm, drawing her back down into her seat. He calmed the elders with a hard glance then looked at Dandra. “So you know,” he said. “The council of elders does hide something. What about you, Tetkashtai? Do you know more than you say?”

Dandra’s heart beat fast. She kept her mouth closed, trying to think what to do or say. She didn’t want to lie to the elders any more than she had to, but she didn’t want to give away too much either. “You have an advantage over me,” she said. “I’ve been away, and I’ve come back to fear in Fan Adar and a kalashtar mad in the street. Tell me what you know. Maybe I can add something to it.”

Hanamelk considered her as Selkatari fumed, then looked to Nevchaned again. “Tell her,” he said.

Nevchaned’s worn face drew tight, but he nodded and turned to meet Dandra’s gaze directly. “Erimelk,” he said, “isn’t the first kalashtar in Fan Adar to go mad. Over the last month, there have been seven others, all of them violent. We’ve had to restrain them to keep them harming themselves-or others.”

Dandra’s heart felt cold. “There have been other attacks?”

“Your Aundairian friend was lucky,” said Selkatari. “He’s still alive. Ten kalashtar and Adarans are dead. One of the mad kalashtar took her own life before we could stop her. Three others may have done the same.”

“What?” Dandra asked. She looked from Selkatari, to Nevchaned, to Hanamelk. “How could this be happening? How could you hide that from the people of Fan Adar?” She blinked. “What about the authorities? Does the Sharn Watch know?”

“No,” said Nevchaned. “Kalashtar deal with kalashtar problems.” He looked vaguely guilty. “But the people of Fan Adar know about the murders and the madness. We couldn’t have hidden that.”

Dandra’s brows drew together. “What are you hiding then?” she asked.

Nevchaned turned pale. “The song,” he said. “We’re trying to hide the song.”

“The … song?” Dandra repeated. The strange tune that Erimelk had sung as he regained consciousness-the song that Nevchaned had moved quickly to silence-came back to her. She tried to recall the melody. “Aahyi-ksiksiksi-?”

The elders drew back from her like a flock of birds parting before the attack of a hawk. “Don’t!” said Nevchaned.

Dandra fell silent and stared at him and all around.

The old kalashtar shook his head. “Two things connect all of those who have fallen mad. One of them is the song. What you heard Erimelk sing is only a pale reflection of what remained of his mind. The song consumed him.”

“Madness that’s caused by a song?” Shock knotted Dandra’s gut. “Does the song spread the madness?”

“We don’t know,” said Nevchaned. “We don’t think so. Many among the elders have heard the song, and we’re not mad yet. But the song and the madness are linked. That’s why we try to suppress it.”

“You said two things connected the kalashtar who fell mad,” Dandra said. “What’s the other?”

Hanamelk interrupted Nevchaned’s answer. “Maybe that’s something you should see for yourself,” he said.

He gestured and, from the back of the room, an old woman rose and came forward. Dandra recognized her with a slight shiver of dread. Her name was Shelsatori. Tetkashtai hadn’t known her well, but Medala had-Shelsatori had taught her some of her most potent psionic powers. Dandra stood and bowed respectfully to the old woman. Shelsatori barely seemed to notice, but just looked at her wearily.

There was no warning, no tentative touch of kesh. All at once, Shelsatori was inside Dandra’s head-not probing or tearing as Medala had once done to Dandra, but simply present much as Tetkashtai had been present. Shelsatori paused as someone who stands at the threshold of a door, then stepped aside.

Sound filled Dandra’s head, a kind of crystalline ringing that rose and fell in a song without words. The notes were inhumanly clear and pure, like glass and gems and drops of silver tumbling together in an unending cascade. No physical voice or instrument could have produced those tones. If she’d tried to sing them, they probably would have come out from her throat just as they had from Erimelk’s. Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi-

The longer she listened, though, the more it seemed that her mind became lost in the intricacies of the song. It turned her back on herself, dragging her down and lifting her up, and it became wilder, darker. Emotions stirred in her. Violent emotions. A need to hurt. A need to kill. And just when she thought she would die herself if she couldn’t kill, the song seemed to condense, offering her a target for her violence-or rather, targets. Three familiar faces swam in the song.

Her, Singe, and Geth.

She almost fell over as the song vanished from her mind along with Shelsatori’s presence. She had to grab for her chair to keep her balance, and it took a moment before she remembered where and who she was. Sweat was cool on her face and arms, and she was trembling. The song lingered like a bad memory, and it was all Dandra could do to offer thanks to il-Yannah that it was someone else’s memory.

“She has seen,” said Shelsatori calmly and turned to return to her seat. Dandra looked up at Nevchaned.

“We don’t know where it comes from, and no one has been able to break its hold. The seers among us-” He nodded at Hanamelk. “-have meditated on the source of the song and found nothing. We thought that it might be the work of our enemies in Riedra, but not even Havakhad was able to sense any hint of new plots among the Inspired. Your face was our only clue until today when you appeared with the Aundairian. Who is the shifter?”

“A friend, but a long way from here.” Dandra sank down into her chair. She could feel the eyes of every elder in the room on her. “Light of il-Yannah. The song was meant to drive its victims to kill us, but without us here, they could only turn on others.”

“We’d assumed as much as well,” said Hanamelk. He hesitated, then added. “The danger hasn’t ended with Erimelk’s capture. The victims appear in sequence. One is subdued and restrained, but a few days later the song comes to someone new.”

“Tell us what you know, Tetkashtai,” Nevchaned said. “If you know what the song is, or why it’s happening, tell us! What about Medalashana and Virikhad? Are they involved?”

Dandra took a slow breath and tried to put her thoughts in order. The song had been claiming victims over the last month-and it had been just over a month since Dah’mir had eluded them. The song urged its victims to kill her, Singe, and Geth-and of course, Dah’mir wouldn’t have known that Geth hadn’t come with them to Sharn. The dragon couldn’t have known that they’d pursue him to Sharn at all, but leaving a trap for them anyway seemed cautious. It couldn’t have been hard to figure out that if they did come to Sharn, they’d seek out the kalashtar in Overlook.

Had he found a new way to direct the power of his presence over kalashtar? Had he found an unexpected way to tap into the ancient binding stones? Had he already mastered them?

Or perhaps the time for questions was past. She sat up straight, raised her chin, and met Nevchaned’s gaze, then looked around at all of the gathered elders.

“Join me in kesh,” she said. “There’s something I need to show you.” She opened herself and reached out. One by one, the minds of the elders touched hers. Dandra clasped them and held them tight, stretching her power to encompass them all.

First, she said as she spread her memories before them, you should know that I am not Tetkashtai-

When she finished the tale and released the elders from kesh, the room was silent except for the muffled sounds of the Gathering Light beyond the door and down the narrow stairs. The elders stared at her and one another. Dandra studied their faces. Most seemed shocked. Some seemed even more frightened than they had when she’d first entered the room. Some looked back at her with loathing-and strangely, Dandra found that it didn’t bother her as much as she’d been afraid it would. All of them had seen what she’d been through. All of them had seen what had happened to Tetkashtai, Medalashana, and Virikhad. All of them had, through her, felt the terrible fascination of Dah’mir’s presence-and she’d felt, through the kesh, the fascination that even her memories of the dragon’s acid-green eyes had exerted upon them.

She felt like a hollow shell of herself, her story drained out her, but she also felt good. The truth had been told and whatever else the elders might think, they knew about Dah’mir now.

Hanamelk broke the silence. “Dah’mir will use the binding stones to imprison the minds of kalashtar in their psicrystals until they go mad and find the strength to reclaim their bodies, becoming servants of Xoriat in their madness. Il-Yannah, no wonder the seers haven’t seen the danger. We watch for attack from Dal Quor and Riedra, not Xoriat and the Cults of the Dragon Below.”

“I’ve seen the black herons you describe,” said Selkatari. “I didn’t think much of them-there are always birds in Sharn, sometimes exotic ones-but now that I think of it, they’ve been here for weeks. Just perching and watching.”

A chorus of agreement rose. Other elders had seen and dismissed the birds as well. “We should start with them,” said Selkatari. “Kill them. Blind Dah’mir.”

“Leave them,” suggested Dandra. “If you kill them, Dah’mir will know something’s wrong. As it is, the only ones who have anything to fear from them are Singe, Ashi, Natrac, and me.”

Selkatari frowned. “What do we do then? Wait for the killing song to take us or Dah’mir to trap us with his binding stones?”

“Or for our psicrystals,” said Shelsatori’s dry, old voice, “to take control of our bodies?”

Dandra’s face burned hot.

Hanamelk rose to his feet. “We do what we’ve always done,” he said. “We stand firm and fight back, offering haven to those who need it. The seers will search out Dah’mir. The telepaths will devise a means to protect us from his power-a dragonmark can’t be the only way to foil him. All others will use our eyes and ears to watch for trouble. We know the danger now. We are on guard. We have as much time as Dah’mir does.” He bent his head to Dandra. “We thank you and we thank your friends. Your warning gives us a chance. Patan yannah, Dandra.”

With a start, Dandra realized she was being dismissed. The heat in her face burned its way into her heart. “Wait-” she began in protest, but then Nevchaned was at her side at she felt his mind touch hers briefly, weakly, as though the long mental debate had taxed him.

Come with me, he said. We need to talk away from here. Hanamelk will keep them busy.

The moment of kesh faded, leaving a sense of urgency in its wake. Dandra swallowed her anger and tried to stand tall and dignified. “Patan yannah, Hanamelk,” she said, then bowed her head to included all of the elders. “Patan yannah.”

Most returned her nod, though stiffly. She allowed Nevchaned to lead her out of the meeting room. Out in the hall, Moon jerked when the door opened, as if he had been asleep at his post. Nevchaned frowned at his son and beckoned for Dandra to follow him partway down the stairs. With the sounds of the Gathering Light-quieter now as the night grew later-surrounding them, he put his head close to hers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Hanamelk is sorry too. The elders need time to talk among themselves and absorb everything you’ve just told them. You’ve frightened them-”

Dandra clenched her teeth. She’d been afraid that the kalashtar wouldn’t accept her? Now she just felt angry. Nevchaned must have read the emotion in her face because he added quickly, “I mean that you’ve frightened them into unity. Our inability to do anything or even to understand what was happening was beginning to divide us. You’ve explained the song. The elders have a focus for their fear.” He grimaced. “Even if that focus is you as much as it is Dah’mir.”

Dandra glared at him. “Forgive me if I don’t seem entirely pleased. Dah’mir is the threat. Not me.”

“I know. So does Hanamelk,” Nevchaned said. “He asked me through kesh to get you out of the room so the elders would have a chance to see things in the proper perspective. Hanamelk saw something more in your story too. Come to my house tomorrow. You may not be as skilled in kesh as Shelsatori, but Hanamelk thinks that since you’ve dealt with Dah’mir’s power before, you should examine Erimelk directly.”

“Why?” Dandra wanted to stay angry with the elders, but something in Nevchaned’s voice changed her rage into worry. “What did Hanamelk see in my story?”

Nevchaned pressed his lips together for a moment before he spoke. “You describe Dah’mir’s use of the binding stones against kalashtar with psicrystals. His plan, as you say, depends on it. But Erimelk had no psicrystal. Neither did some of the others who have fallen to the killing song.” The old man looked at her gravely. “Either Dah’mir is now a danger to us all and could strike at any of us-or the killing song is not his creation.”

CHAPTER 6

Deathsgate district was on the opposite side of Sharn from Overlook, and in the City of Towers-and of stairs, ramps, bridges, blind streets, and precipices-making the journey on foot would have taken a few hours under the best of circumstances. Singe briefly considered it anyway. A long walk in Sharn could be very pleasant.

When Ashi paused twice before they even made it out of Overlook to marvel at some view or gape at one of Sharn’s more exotic citizens, he decided that a walk would be better left for another time. He drew Ashi to a wide marked balcony that protruded out into space high above a large courtyard and hired a skycoach. The look of amazement in the hunter’s eyes as the coach, resembling nothing so much as a large rowboat decorated with the figurehead of a swan and with wings carved into the wood of its hull, rose into the air brought a laugh up from deep in Singe’s belly.

“Her first time in Sharn,” he said to the coach driver, a woman with short, silvery hair, large eyes, and the kind of eternally youthful face that hinted at elf blood. He would have been hard-pressed to put an age to her.

The driver smiled. “I’ll give her the tour.”

And so the City of Towers skimmed past below, around, and above them. The passing of the rain had left the air cool and the sky clear. High up, the smells of the city streets mingled with the night breeze off the sea. Every shift in the wind that beat at Singe’s hair brought hints-and sometimes bursts-of odor. Smoke. Saltwater. Rotting vegetables. Baking bread. It all blended into a unique perfume. Singe could have closed his eyes and still known he was flying above Sharn.

None of the visible moons were full, but their crescents, fat and thin, made a pleasing sight, a scattered counterpoint to the thick gossamer band of the Ring of Siberys in the southern sky. Sharn was itself a reflection of the sky above as the lights of homes and streets shone against the darkness of the towers. All around their skycoach, other coaches flew, lit fore and aft by shimmering white lights. Here and there, tiny soarsleds crackled with energy as their lone riders piloted them through the night. Higher up, the open air was the domain of airships, some only a little larger than their skycoach, others massive, each supported and propelled by a wind or fire elemental bound into a ring around the ship’s belly. Those ships powered by a fire elemental shone like shooting stars; those powered by an air elemental had a paler glow, like errant moonbeams.

Far, far below the skycoach, night fell into the deep chasms that separated the plateaus on which the wards of the city had been built. The way was most clear over those dark voids and their driver could easily have followed that route. She didn’t. Instead, she plunged in among the towers themselves, dipping under bridges and darting around other traffic, all the while shouting out the sights. “The Korranath, the great temple of Kol Korran,” she called above the rush of the wind, and Ashi stared at an enormous dome of gold that flashed with the light as if a thousand gems were embedded in its surface. “Kundarak Tower!” and the peak of a tower topped with four life-size statues of dragons flicked past. “Skysedge Park!” and Ashi leaned out over the edge of the coach to stare in amazement at the meadows and ponds that rolled across the tops of three great towers.

The hunter sat back with her eyes wide above her scarf. “Ha’azit teith,” she said in awe. “How is all this possible, Singe? Even magic has limits, doesn’t it?”

Singe smiled. “You know about other planes of existence like Xoriat and Dal Quor,” he said, trying to keep concepts simple for her. “Xoriat is the Realm of Madness and Dal Quor is the Region of Dreams. There are other planes as well, worlds that are the pure expression of an element or concept. Sometimes they’re far away from Eberron, other times they’re closer. Sometimes the reality of one of those other planes bleeds through into Eberron, making a permanent connection. Wizards call those places manifest zones, and things are possible in them that wouldn’t be possible anywhere else. The Shadow Marches has many small manifest zones of Xoriat. It’s one reason the daelkyr and the cults of the Dragon Below are so powerful there.” He gestured around them. “Sharn is built within a manifest zone of Syrania, the Azure Sky. Magic related to flight works better here, sometimes with hardly any effort at all. That’s how towers can be built so tall and why lifts and skycoaches-” He rapped his knuckles against the hull of the coach. “-work at all.”

Ashi still looked as if she was struggling to understand his explanation. Singe tried to think of an even simpler way to describe the nature of Sharn to her, but the coach driver beat him to it. “Things don’t want to fall down here,” she said, and Ashi’s face cleared in comprehension.

They curved in a wide arc, passed over another dark chasm, and entered another ward. Their driver began naming sights again, and Ashi once more became entranced. “The Old Spire of Deniyas. Kavarrah Concert Hall. Looks like there’s a performance tonight-I think it might be Egen Marktaros, the Thrane exile. Dalannan Tower and Morgrave University.” The coach dipped sharply, diving between towers so closely packed it might as well have been flying through tunnels. They emerged into a district that smelled of alchemical experiments and shone with magical light in myriad hues.

“Everbright, the wizard’s district,” said the driver-then plunged into a real tunnel bored through the thick stones of one of the great towers and came back out into the night.

A wall of sparkling lights, a sweeping view of an entire arm of the city, rose above them in a spectacle so unexpected and breathtaking that even Singe found himself amazed. Their driver slowed the coach so that they seemed to be drifting into Sharn’s embrace like a leaf on the wind. The wall of light swelled before them, breaking slowly into individual lanterns in streets and windows. The coach eased up beside a landing, and the driver broke the spell by calling out, “Deathsgate district!” She grinned at Ashi. “How did you like the ride?”

Wordlessly, Ashi bent her head and touched her fingers to her shrouded lips, then to her forehead.

“That means she liked it,” said Singe. He paid the fare and added a generous tip. The driver grinned and helped them out of the coach, then sent the vessel skimming back off into the darkness. Singe looked at Ashi. “Are you going to blink?” he asked.

“I don’t think I can,” she told him.

They set off into Deathsgate. Located in the middle levels of the great towers, the district had a strangely contained feel to it. Although the ground was far below, the height of the towers above emphasized how far away they were from open sky-when they could see the sky at all. Most of the streets were more like very large passages, and the courtyards were massive enclosures with bridges leaping beneath shadowed roofs. There was no hint of the rain that had caught them earlier except for drips and leaks and one empty square where water poured in a cascade through cracks in the ceiling.

“Trickle down,” Singe explained to Ashi. “Most of the rain that falls on the upper city ends up in reservoirs, but what doesn’t has to go somewhere. They say that when it rains in Sharn, it takes two days for it to stop.”

In spite of the late hour, the neighborhoods of Deathsgate were livelier than any other they had passed through, rivaling the waterfront of Cliffside and certainly surpassing the restrained hush of Fan Adar in Overlook. The people stumbling in the streets and staggering from the doorways of taverns looked like they had more in common with the sailors of Cliffside as well. All manner of races-from humans, to dwarves, to shifters, halflings, and warforged-were represented. Most them went armed as well. Swords, spears, axes, and maces hung ready for use, and even those in the crowds who carried no obvious weapons walked with a confident and dangerous stride. Singe caught Ashi staring again and nudged her.

“Try not to do that,” he said quietly. “The more you look like someone new to Sharn, the more people will try to take advantage of you.”

“You’re scared they’ll start a fight?”

“I’m scared you might start a fight. Look around.” He nodded to the profusion of banners that decorated the buildings they passed, the strings of pennants that hung across the street, and the paint and posters that daubed bold colors onto dark stone walls. Like Overlook, Deathsgate had been decorated for the coming celebrations of Thronehold. Unlike Overlook, however, the crimson and gold of Breland were not the dominant colors. The black and red of Karrnath, the blue of Aundair, the silver of Thrane, and the green of lost Cyre were all represented in equal or even greater proportion. The colors and crests of a variety of regiments and companies, some Singe knew and others that he didn’t, added to the display.

“The people who gather in Deathsgate come from across Khorvaire, and the majority of them are no strangers to violence,” he said. “They’re old soldiers, mercenaries, treasure hunters, inquisitives, war wizards, bounty hunters, probably even a few assassins. I’d lay odds that every one of them saw something of the Last War. They’re not going to be looking for trouble, but if it finds them, they won’t back down.”

Ashi looked and a little of the intensity faded from her eyes. She nodded slowly. “You and Geth belong here,” she said.

A smile curled one corner of Singe’s lips. “I suppose we do.”

“You’ve forgiven him for what happened at Narath?”

The smile faded and an old ache grew inside the wizard. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “You can’t understand what Narath was like, Ashi.”

She turned her eyes on him, and her gaze was abruptly hot and angry. “Blood in your mouth! I may be an innocent to Sharn, but remember who you’re talking to and how we met. The Bonetree hunters raided and killed in the name of the Dragon Below. We stood in awe of dolgrims and dolgaunts as the perfect children of Khyber. I understand death.”

Singe returned her gaze without flinching. “What was the largest raid you ever took part in?”

“The Bonetree destroyed the Hill Shadow clan shortly after I was made a hunter,” Ashi told him. “Their camp was maybe three times the size of Bull Hollow. We killed their warriors and gave clean death to anyone too old to bring new blood to the Bonetree.”

“The Hill Shadow clan had about a hundred people then.” Singe pressed his lips together tightly for a moment. “More than ten times that number died in Narath. Very few of them were given a clean death. And I was on their side.” He looked away from her. “I wouldn’t say that I’ve forgiven Geth. I might say that I don’t hate him the same way I used to.”

“Dandra thinks there’s more to his story-something he isn’t saying.”

“Dandra doesn’t understand Narath either.” He sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Ashi. We’ve got other things to worry about. Once we get to the House Deneith enclave, I’ll see if there’s a message from Geth, then I want to ask around and see if anyone knows anything that might give us a clue about where Dah’mir and Vennet are hiding. House Deneith often has connections with the city watch, and someone might have heard something.”

“What should I do?” Ashi asked.

“Just stay close. Look around, see what goes on in a Deneith enclave. We should be able to pass without anyone recognizing your mark. Like I said, there aren’t likely to be any actual members of Deneith on duty this late-just mercenaries hiring other mercenaries.”

The Deneith enclave was a small, solid building on the edge of a largely deserted square. A guard wearing a blue jacket embroidered in silver with the emblem of the Watchful Eye superimposed on an upright sword-symbol of the Blademarks mercenary guild-stood outside the door. He straightened as Singe and Ashi approached, but Singe waved him to ease. “Singe, lieutenant of the Blademarks out of Fairhaven,” he said. “Checking for a message delivered here.”

The guard nodded and stood aside. Ashi glanced at him as they entered, then leaned close to Singe to whisper, “That’s all? Shouldn’t he have challenged you?”

“This is a recruiting center for the Blademarks. Deneith wouldn’t hire many people if they turned them all away at the door. The guard is mostly for show.”

Somewhere inside the building, a chime rang three times. Singe paused just inside the doorway and glanced back at the door guard. It didn’t look like the man had moved, but …

“Something’s wrong?” asked Ashi.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said Singe. “That was the commander’s chime. It signals the ranking officer of an enclave that he’s wanted.”

“It could be a coincidence.”

“It could,” he agreed cautiously.

He started walking again, stepping through a small foyer into the main hall of the enclave. The room was large, with recruiting displays lining the walls. Behind the glass of the cases were paintings of and trophies from battles won by Blademarks companies, along with souvenirs brought back by Blademarks mercenaries from their exotic adventures. More displays celebrated the other branches of House Deneith’s operations, the Defenders Guild and the elite Sentinel Marshals. The Defenders Guild display included endorsements from famous people who had hired Deneith’s bodyguards; the Sentinel Marshals display featured a history of the Marshals and their role in capturing lawbreakers across the Five Nations, along with a tall pillar plastered with the warrant-notices of notorious miscreants.

All in all, it was an impressive sight, well-designed to perform its intended purpose of enticing would-be mercenaries to sign up with Deneith’s companies of warriors-for-hire. It was also exactly as empty as Singe had expected it would be at this hour. A few juvenile thugs a little too young for Deneith to take on were staring with fascination at a battered old horn recovered from the infamous Battle of Falcon Hill, but the only other person in the hall was the duty officer standing behind the long counter at the end of the room-until a door behind the counter opened and another Blademarks officer stepped out.

The newcomer was younger, about Singe’s own age, with black hair worn long and vibrantly blue eyes. Those eyes went to Singe and Ashi immediately, and the newcomer exchanged a brief, quiet word with the duty officer, who promptly vanished through the door. A chill ran along Singe’s back. “Ashi,” the wizard said without turning his head. “Why don’t you wait over there at the Sentinel Marshal’s display?”

“The one closest to the door?”

He nodded and caught a glimpse of her eyes narrowing as she studied the new man behind the counter. “Not a friend?” she asked.

“No. His name is Mithas d’Deneith.”

Her eyebrows rose. “He carries a dragonmark?”

“Worse,” murmured Singe. “He’s ambitious, a gambler-and a sorcerer. Wait for me and watch him in case he tries to cast any spells. I have a feeling that we won’t want to stay here long.”

The hunter glided over to the display with the grace of a hunting cat. Singe crossed the room with long deliberate strides, the chill along his back slowly changing to an angry heat. “Mithas,” he said when he was close enough.

“Etan!” Mithas greeted him with a joy that was blatantly hollow. “What brings you to Sharn?”

“I’d ask you the same thing,” Singe said, “but I’m not really interested. You’ve wriggled your way into command of a recruiting center. Congratulations.” He put his hands on top of the counter. “A message may have been sent here for me. Have you seen it?”

Mithas made a show of looking under the counter. “A message? Let me see … Bayard … Bayard …” He stood straight, still smiling. “No, nothing for-”

“It will be addressed to ‘Singe.’”

“Oh, of course! Singe.” He opened one side of his blue Blademarks uniform jacket and extracted a folded sheet of grayish paper from an inner pocket. “That would be this message. It arrived through House Sivis just the day before last.”

Singe held out his hand. Mithas lifted the message out of reach, and his smile took on a predatory gleam. “What, no thanks? I see a message addressed to my old friend, take personal charge of it, even leave instructions to be summoned when you arrived, and this is what I get for my troubles?”

“More likely you saw my name and wanted to see what you could get out of me. How much money do you need this time that a command posting can’t pay for it?” An idea sprang into Singe’s head, and he let his hand fall as he grinned. “You’re not the commander here. Twelve moons, I knew no commander would stay the night at a recruiting center!”

Two bright spots of color leaped into Mithas’s face, and his smile faltered. “I’m the night commander!”

Singe let out a short, barking laugh. “That’s not a posting-that’s punishment! What did you do this time to …” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “No, I don’t care what you did. I don’t know what you think is in that message, but give it to me or I will go to your commander and let him know that you’ve been interfering with private messages. And I’ll guess that you paid someone to tell me to come back at night if I showed up during the day shift, so that’s bribery.” He held out his hand again. “Message. Now.”

The man on the other side of the counter looked as if he was working hard to maintain even a semblance of friendship. Singe heard the young thugs behind him muttering and glanced over his shoulder to see them watching the brewing confrontation. Ashi was beyond them, half of her attention on the Sentinel Marshal display, the other on the thugs and on Singe. He turned back to Mithas.

Just in time to catch him glancing toward the door behind the counter-the door through which the duty officer had disappeared. The skin on the back of Singe’s neck prickled. He hadn’t made it through the war without developing a good sense of when someone was up to something. Mithas looked back to him, meeting his eyes, and the smile vacated his face. Reflexively, he lifted the message higher. Singe kept his eyes on the other man’s face.

“What’s going on, Mithas?” he asked softly, dangerously. “Waiting for your friend?”

“Just making sure he doesn’t come back too soon,” Mithas said. “He doesn’t need to see money changing hands.” He twitched the paper. “You’ve got to be good for … what? A hundred?”

His voice was light. Deceptively light. He was stalling. “You’re going too far,” Singe growled at him. “Give me that message before you get yourself into trouble.”

For a moment, fear flickered across Mithas’s face, but then his expression hardened. “You want to be careful about starting trouble, Singe. You’re already in enough of it.” The cold smile came back to his face. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what you’re doing in Sharn when you were last seen running from a burning village in the Eldeen Reaches?”

The prickling on Singe’s neck turned into a painful burn. Caught up in his anger, Mithas twisted the knife of his words a little more. “Word filtered back to the House a few weeks ago. The survivors of some kind of raid on a little backwoods settlement were full of praise for the heroic death of Toller d’Deneith, but it seemed no one knew what happened to his lieutenant. I think the lords of Deneith would like to have a talk with you, Singe. And I’m going to be the one to give them that chance, thanks to this.” He snapped the gray paper of the message between his fingers. “I know opportunity when it spreads itself out in front of-”

At the other end of the hall, Ashi let out a startled exclamation, and there was a sudden, sharp sound like tearing paper. Mithas glanced past Singe, and a look of surprise and anger flared in his eyes.

Singe didn’t let the moment of distraction go to waste. He leaped up and forward, thrusting himself across the smooth wood of the counter. Mithas tried to twist away with the message, but the message wasn’t Singe’s target. He kicked out with one swinging leg and clipped Mithas’s shoulder, spinning him into the wall. Before the other man had even managed to turn himself around again, Singe was on him. He punched Mithas hard across the jaw, then pinned him against the wall long enough to hammer a second blow into his belly. As Mithas doubled over, Singe plucked the message from his fingers.

“You never know when to shut up,” he told the choking man. “That’s why you always lose at cards too.”

He stuffed the message inside his vest and vaulted back over the counter. Ashi was halfway along the hall, her eyes wide with surprise, her sword half-drawn, and a piece of paper clenched in her fist. The young thugs were standing back out of the way-one of them had a knife out but didn’t look like he sure whether he should use it or not. Singe ignored them and intercepted Ashi.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“Nothing to worry about right now,” he said, turning her around. “We’re leaving.”

“Singe, look at this.” Ashi tried to put her scrap of paper into his hands. He pushed it back at her.

“Later!”

There was a groan and a whistling intake of breath behind them. Singe’s belly tightened and he whirled. Mithas was up again and leaning heavily against the counter. His eyes flashed malevolently. He flung out a hand, and words of magic rippled from his tongue, raw and half-formed to Singe’s ears, the intuitive magic of a sorcerer rather than the practiced spell of a wizard, but just as dangerous. Singe darted his fingers toward Mithas and tried to call out a spell of his own, something to break the other man’s casting, but Mithas was just a heartbeat faster. Before he could even gather his will to resist it, a kind of peaceful calm rolled over him. The fiery syllables of his spell froze, then faded, on his tongue. Ashi grabbed him and shook him, but it seemed as if all he could do was focus on his old friend Mithas.

The sorcerer pushed himself off from the bar. “Why don’t you just come back here, and we’ll keep talking, Etan?” he said through teeth clenched tight with pain. “You’re not in a hurry to leave, are you?”

Something at the back of Singe’s mind screamed that yes, he was, but the words that came out of his mouth had no urgency at all. “No, I’m not in a hurry. What did you want to talk about?” He shrugged off Ashi’s hands and started to amble back toward Mithas, but the hunter seized him and swung him around again.

“Rond betch!” she spat. Singe watched her eyes narrow in concentration, felt a sudden heat in her grip-and the eerie calm that had gripped him shattered like glass as the power of Ashi’s Siberys mark brushed aside Mithas’s magic. Singe stumbled, anger washing over him once more, then spun back to Mithas. The sorcerer’s eyes were bulging in confused amazement at the sudden, effortless breaking of his spell.

“You dabbling bastard!” Singe hissed at him.

Mithas just choked, “How-?”

And that was when the thug with the knife managed to find the nerve to attack. Whooping like a halfling raider, he threw himself at Ashi, his blade raised high. It was a ridiculous, clumsy attack, and Ashi didn’t even bother to draw her sword, but just reached up, grabbed the wrist of the young man’s knife hand, and wrenched it. Her assailant’s knife flew in one direction while he flipped in the other, arms and legs flailing.

His waving hand caught her scarf and ripped it free. He hit the floor hard, and the fabric slithered down on top of him, covering his face-but leaving Ashi’s bare, the vivid patterns of her dragonmark exposed.

CHAPTER 7

Singe saw the shock that passed across Ashi’s face, but the damage had been done. Still leaning against the counter, Mithas’s eyes bulged even further as he stared at the complex lines of color that rose along Ashi’s neck, swirled across her cheeks, and vanished beneath her thick, golden hair. His mouth worked in astonishment. “Sib … Sib … Siberys!” he croaked.

Outrage and alarm churned inside Singe. He grabbed Ashi and dragged her to the door, snatching up the scarf in passing.

The outer door of the hall opened, and the guard who had stood outside came charging through the foyer, maybe alerted by the sound of the thug’s attack and defeat. His gaze darted from Singe and Ashi, running toward him, to the fallen thug, groaning on the ground, and his hand went to his sword with the precise discipline of Blademarks training.

“No!” Mithas shouted. “Alive! Take them alive!”

The guard hesitated. Singe ripped his rapier from his scabbard and swung it high, screaming the first battle cry that came into his head. “Frostbrand!”

Confronted with the screaming warrior and Ashi’s deadly grace, the guard very sensibly leaped aside even as he drew his sword. He tried to strike as they swept past him, but Singe beat down his sword and slashed at him. His rapier sliced into the guard’s blue jacket, and the wizard felt the tip of the blade cut flesh. It wasn’t a pretty defense, but the guard stumbled back and they were past him. Singe heard exclamations, footsteps, and orders from Mithas. He risked a glimpse back and saw more mercenaries pouring out from the door behind the counter with the duty officer at their head.

They must have been the reason Mithas had been trying to delay him, he guessed. If they were though …

He looked ahead as he and Ashi passed into the foyer. The outer door stood open, but Singe could hear running footsteps from that direction too.

“Look away, Ashi!” he said, then focused his will on the door and spat the word of one of the simplest spells he knew.

Just beyond the doorway, flame leaped in brief, intense flare. It lasted only an instant, but for that instant it was dazzling-and its sudden appearance was just as startling as he’d hoped. Running footsteps stumbled, voices rose in surprise, and bodies thumped together in confusion. He and Ashi burst out of the doorway and past the mercenaries that had been closing in on either side.

Singe picked the busiest of the streets coming off the square in which the Deneith enclave stood and sprinted toward it. Mithas’s voice followed them in frantic orders to the mercenaries. “Follow them! Bring them back! Alive, damn you, alive!”

A ripple ran along the edge of the crowd as people turned, then drew back at the sight of a naked blade, though more than a few men and women reached for their own weapons, either in self-defense or greed at the possibility of a reward from House Deneith for capturing the fugitives.

“Fight?” asked Ashi at his side.

The hunter had one gloved hand over her face, trying to hide the telltale lines of her dragonmark. Singe thrust her scarf at her. “No,” he said. “Just follow me.”

He didn’t slow down as he plowed into the crowd and made straight for the biggest, drunkest man he could see: a red-faced brute with muscle-corded arms.

As luck would have it, he was busy tipping a tankard to his lips. Singe slapped at the vessel with his free hand, and beer cascaded over the man’s face. Wet and reeking, the man roared in fury and grabbed for him, but Singe skipped aside and stuck out his foot. The man went sprawling into another knot of merrymakers, who also let out furious roars. Singe didn’t wait to see what happened but whirled to two hatchet-faced women who had draped themselves in the colors of Karrnath, raised his rapier, and shouted “Graverobbers! Aundair is the true heir to Galifar!”

Sharn might have been set to celebrate Thronehold and peace, but the wounds of the Last War were still fresh, and it didn’t take much to tear them open again. The Karrn women howled and sprang forward.

And were met by a trio of Aundairians leaping to Singe’s defense with nationalistic pride. “For the Queen!”

Singe slipped back behind the other Aundairians, letting them take the edge of the Karrns’ attack. Or tried to. Abruptly, he felt the prick of dagger on his side, and a man’s voice with the accent of Cyre murmured in his ear. “Slick as the Traveler, my friend, but what do you say to going back to the Deneith enclave. Whatever they want you for, I could use the rew-agh!”

His words ended in a straggled sound as he and his knife were ripped away. A moment later, he went reeling past Singe toward the battling Karrns, propelled by Ashi. One of the women turned with lethal instinct and buried the hand-axe she fought with in his shoulder. The Cyran’s scream was gruesome, and some of his fellow countrymen rushed to his aid, turning indiscriminately against Karrns and Aundairians alike.

The beads woven into her hair sliding and clacking, Ashi whirled back to Singe, and although her scarf was once more tied firmly over her face, he could tell she was smiling. “I like Deathsgate much better than Overlook!”

Singe looked around. In a matter of moments, a wide swath of the crowd had been transformed into churning chaos as drunken brawl merged with patriotic violence. The people in the street who weren’t already embroiled in the fighting were in retreat, pushing and shoving to get away. The mercenaries from the Blademarks hall hadn’t even made it across the square yet.

He jammed his rapier back into its sheath and pulled Ashi along with the moving crowd. In moments, both fighting and mercenaries were lost to sight. Singe turned down another street, then another, finally stopping on the edge of a courtyard where the only hint of violence was a loud argument about a game of sundown. He leaned against the wall of a tavern with one hand and beat the other against his forehead. “Bloody moons!” he cursed. “Twelve bloody moons! Of all the times to lose the scarf …”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Ashi said. “At least we lost the Deneith guards.”

Singe drew a deep breath and tried to rein in his anger. “We lost the guards. We won’t have lost Mithas-he’s going to be looking for you now. You heard him. He recognized the Siberys Mark of Deneith.”

Ashi’s eyebrows drew together. “He only saw my face.”

“That would be all he needed. He knows what he saw. I told you, he’s ambitious. He knows what bringing you to the lords of Deneith would do for his status in the house.”

“You know a lot about him.”

Singe let out a sigh. “When I first joined the Frostbrand, he was Robrand d’Deneith’s lieutenant. Robrand dismissed Mithas when his gambling nearly put the company in danger-and not long after that, he made me lieutenant in his place.” He pushed himself upright. “I suppose we were rivals before that, though. Sorcerers and wizards don’t always get along. His magic is instinctive. I had to work at mine, but I surpassed him. Mithas is the kind of person who doesn’t like seeing anyone get ahead of him.”

“Do you think he’ll send House Deneith after us?” Ashi asked.

“Probably not. That would play his hand too soon. I wouldn’t underestimate what he could accomplish on his own, though. This isn’t good. It isn’t good at all.” He rubbed fingers across his eyes in frustration.

The motion brought a crinkle of paper from his vest. He reached into his pocket and extracted the message that had been waiting for him and looked at it. “You know,” he said, “I don’t even know that this is from Geth. I told him to send a message by Orien post, not Sivis messenger.”

“Are you going to look?”

Singe shrugged and broke the wax that had sealed the message-if Mithas had read it, he managed to seal it up again-and scanned the few lines written on the gray paper in the neat script of a gnome scribe. His mouth twitched, and he squeezed his eyes shut, but he could still see the words.

“Is it from Geth?”

“It’s from Geth,” he said. He opened his eyes and read the message:

5 Aryth

Singe,

We got to Zarash’ak yesterday. Staying with Bava. She gave us money for Sivis and says hello to Natrac. Buying a boat and heading up river to Fat Tusk tomorrow. Good luck in Sharn. Send word back to Bava if you’re still alive when this is over.

Geth

He folded the message again. His jaw ached, he was holding it so tightly. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything more than that, but twelve moons-all that trouble and this is what we get!” He crushed the message in his hand.

“We got something else,” Ashi said. She held out the scrap of paper she had acquired in the Deneith enclave. “This was on the pillar by the Sentinel Marshals display.”

“The pillar of warrant-notices?” Singe took the paper and smoothed it out.

It was indeed a warrant-notice, now somewhat torn by Ashi’s removal of it from the pillar. It had yellowed with age, and Singe guessed that it was many years old. Many years also separated the face printed in woodblock on the notice from the face that Singe knew, but both the face and the name below it were familiar.

Natrac of Graywall. Wanted in Sharn for extortion, arson, armed assault, assault and battery, fraud, theft, suspicion of murder, suspicion of slave-trading …

The hood of his cowl pulled low, Natrac slid a few copper crowns across the bar. The wood was rough, cracked from moisture and scarred by blades. The old goblin on the other side of the bar had a face to match and big eyes that didn’t look like they missed anything. He made the coins disappear with the practiced ease of an old pickpocket and said in the guttural language of his race, “I’ve seen someone like that second fellow. Wears a hat that shades his face and covers his ears, so I don’t know if he’s a half-elf for sure, but he’s got the build and he doesn’t bother to hide his hair. Long and blond. I know people who would kill for that hair. Wigmakers pay good money.”

Vennet. Natrac’s gut tightened and his belly gurgled from watery ale consumed in nearly a dozen vile taverns. “Where did you see him? When?” he asked in Goblin.

“Two Boot Way near Nightpot Close.” The bartender shrugged skinny shoulders. “I’ve seen him a few times. I cut that way when I come to work.”

“Was there anyone with him? The pale human with green eyes I asked about?”

The goblin examined him for a moment as if assessing whether he could get another bribe out of his mysterious visitor, then shrugged again. “No. Haven’t seen anyone like that.”

“What about a heron … a big, skinny bird with black feathers and green eyes?”

This time the goblin snorted. “You look like you know your way around, chib. When have you ever seen a bird in Malleon’s Gate?”

Natrac had to admit that he had a point. He took a sip from the mug of ale that the goblin had put in front of him when he’d first approached the bar.

Dandra and Singe weren’t going to be happy that he’d risked going down to Malleon’s Gate alone. Ashi would be furious that he’d gone to the dangerous district without her. If he’d been going anywhere else, he would have brought all three of them along-Lords of the Host, he thought, I’m not stupid! — but he had told Dandra the truth. Malleon’s Gate wasn’t the place to start a fight. One person could pass through the dens and lairs of the district with far less trouble than four. Especially if he knew his way around. In spite of the years since he’d left Sharn, the important things in Malleon’s Gate hadn’t changed. A couple of taverns closed, a couple more opened, a few old acquaintances dead, but he didn’t want to see old acquaintances. He’d made a point of talking only to people he didn’t know and who presumably didn’t know him. It had taken longer to get answers, but it had kept his head on his shoulders.

But Singe, Dandra, and Ashi might still have reason to forgive him his secrets. He’d hoped to pick up rumors in Sharn’s underworld that might point to Dah’mir or his activities. He hadn’t actually expected to find solid information on Vennet d’Lyrandar-and finding the treacherous half-elf was as good as finding the dragon. Natrac couldn’t believe the two would be far apart.

Two Boot Way was a common short cut. Vennet could still be almost anywhere in Malleon’s Gate, but knowing he was in the district was a very good start.

Natrac took another sip from his mug, then set it aside and pushed himself away from the bar. “Thanks for the word.”

“This half-elf’s nothing to me,” said the goblin. The little bartender hesitated, then added, “You might want to be careful with him. When I’ve seen him, he’s had a big sailor’s cutlass on his belt and he’s always been talking to himself. I think he might be …” He tapped his temple.

“He is,” grunted Natrac. He turned away from the bar-and froze.

At a table against one wall of the tavern, twin reflections of his face talked and laughed. A third version of him chatted to a young hobgoblin woman at another table. As he watched, a fourth Natrac walked in through the tavern door and received a loud hail from his duplicates.

The goblin behind the bar must have misinterpreted his surprise. “They call themselves the Broken Mirror,” he said with disgust in his voice. “Bunch of changeling lunatics-they pick someone and all of them take his appearance until someone else catches their fancy. Some poor sap is going to find trouble at his door in the morning.”

Natrac remembered the changelings on the waterfront that afternoon and the one who had copied his face before he’d pulled up his cowl. He held back a curse. “How many of them are there?” he asked the bartender.

“Five or six. They’ve probably been spread out around Malleon’s Gate through the night. They like to get together after they’ve done their mischief and swap stories. I heard that one time they …”

Natrac didn’t listen to the rest of what the goblin had to say. If his face had been walking through Malleon’s Gate all night, there was going to be more than trouble. It was past time he left the district. The quiet of Overlook was suddenly very appealing. Keeping his head down and his distance from the changelings, he moved for the door.

He was about halfway there when it flew open and a big bugbear squeezed through. Natrac was used to standing a head or more taller than other people, but the bugbear stood a head taller than him. The creature’s thickly-muscled shoulders were as wide as one of the tavern tables and his broad ears were as ragged and scarred as the tabletops. Below wiry brows so thick they merged with the hair on his head, a leathery black nose twitched and sniffed at the air.

In his grip was another Natrac, except that this one’s face was battered and bruised.

Heads turned to meet the bugbear-every voice in the tavern fell silent as he stood aside and a hobgoblin with very large, very prominent teeth entered. His gaze fell on the startled changelings and anyone near them pulled away.

“Which one of you is Paik?” the hobgoblin snarled.

The Natrac that had been flirting with the hobgoblin woman took a step back. His features blurred and melted, assuming the pale moon-faced appearance of a changeling’s natural form. Before the transformation was even complete, the hobgoblin man strode over to him and snapped a hand around his throat. “Where did you see the half-orc whose face you copied?”

Paik croaked out a babbling answer about Cliffside and a stranger just come off a ship. The hobgoblin’s dark eyes grew narrow, and his wolf-like ears stood erect as he listened. Natrac glanced toward the door. No one else in the tavern was moving. If he made a break for the door, the bugbear would notice. He forced himself to remain still.

Paik’s voice trailed off into blubbering pleas. The hobgoblin gave him a shake and dropped him, then swept the room with his gaze. Natrac held his breath, but the dark eyes passed right over him. After a moment, the hobgoblin raised his voice. “Five gold galifars to anyone who brings me news of the man whose face these gaa’ma were wearing. Fifteen if they turn him over to me!”

Just barely visible past his cowl, Natrac saw the bartender’s face go from frightened to surprised to cunning as he figured out the real reason behind his customer’s surprise at the sight of the changelings. The goblin’s arm rose sharply. “Him!” he shouted, pointing at Natrac. “Try him!”

The hobgoblin whirled, but Natrac was already moving. He darted to one side of the bugbear in an attempt to get past him, but the big creature turned swiftly, tracking him. Natrac flicked his knife-hand free of the long sleeve that had concealed it and made a feint with the intention of keeping the bugbear back.

Instead of flinching, the bugbear drew back his meaty arm and flung the changeling at Natrac.

Natrac caught a brief glimpse of his own bruised face and let his knife-hand fall, but he couldn’t get out of the way in time. The heavy weight of the changeling knocked him back into a flimsy table. He went down in a tangle of broken wood and his own limbs. Big, hairy hands grabbed him by one shoulder and the wrist of his knife-hand and hauled him to his feet. Another hand jerked back his cowl.

The hobgoblin stood in front of him with rage smoldering in his eyes. Natrac managed a smile that would have done Singe justice. “Hello, Biish,” he said.

There was a short, heavy club in Biish’s fist. He brought it down so hard and fast that Natrac didn’t even feel the blow before he fell into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 8

Geth was dreaming. He dreamed that he was on a battlefield, faceless enemies coming at him in unending waves. He felt no fear, though. He howled his courage and strength at his enemies, and met them with his great gauntlet on his right arm and Wrath gripped in his left hand. He tore through them in a whirling, unstoppable dance. Dark blood flowed, flesh and bones split, and his enemies fell before him. Sometimes the shadows parted to reveal the faces of dolgrims or chuul, Bonetree hunters or Aundairian raiders, the soldiers of Breland or Thrane. They all died. His goal lay ahead, clearly visible across the battlefield: the mound of the Bonetree clan. He would reach it soon. He was unstoppable, invulnerable, his body and his spirit in perfect harmony. He threw back his head and roared to a sky lit bright by the Ring of Siberys and all twelve moons.

He didn’t want the dream to end-not just because of the clean exhilaration of the fight, but because his friends and allies fought alongside him. Orshok, Krepis, and Kobus fought with him. Ashi, Natrac, and Ekhaas. Singe and Dandra guarded his back with magical flame and psionic whitefire. Adolan fought beside him, his heavy spear thrusting and spinning.

On his other side, another younger Singe in the blue jacket of the Blademarks emblazoned with the silver crest of the Frostbrand company. Other friends from the lost company were there too. Treykin, Coron, Dew, Leed, Jahanah, Falko, Bikk … Somewhere, even Robrand d’Deneith rode, calling orders to the men and women in his command.

And Geth felt nothing but joy at seeing them again. There was no grief at seeing Adolan. There was no anger at confronting Robrand and no shame at seeing the Frostbrand-even though Geth knew he should have felt it.

In the way of dreams, that moment of doubt started everything unraveling. Geth’s arms felt heavy suddenly, gauntlet and sword dragging on them. Enemies stopped falling so easily. The faces of allies faded, becoming as shadowy as those of the figures they fought. Above the sounds of battle, Robrand’s clear calls became bitter, directed at him rather than the company. “Fight, you coward! Fight! The city depends on you-fall and you kill Narath and the Frostbrand!”

“Frostbrand!”

The cry brought him around. One of the Frostbrand had left his position. Black curls shone as the man bounded forward to meet a charging band of enemy fighters.

“Coron!” Geth shouted after him

The first of the enemy fighters sidestepped the mercenary’s attack, dropped to his knees and swung a knife in a tight arc. Coron’s right leg collapsed under him. Even as he fell, though, he thrust with his own blade, and one of the enemy jerked back. Clear as sun on a bright day, Geth saw red blood burst from an ear cut away by a chance blow.

The sound that reached him would have been terrible coming from the throat of any living creature. Geth’s gut collapsed into a knot as the injured man kicked the sword out of Coron’s hand, grabbed a handful of black curls, and raised a knife so heavy it looked like a butcher’s tool. Coron’s eyes rolled back as he saw his death ready to fall.

“No!” Geth roared. He leaped forward. “No!-”

“-No!” He sat up with the cry on his lips, his heart thundering in his chest. He might have jumped up and drawn Wrath if there hadn’t been an orc lying across his legs. The warrior grunted and opened eyes bleary with sleep and drink to glare at him.

“Hacha, shekot, hacha!” he groaned and rolled off Geth’s legs to fall back into slumber.

Geth sat still, letting the world come back to him as the dream faded. He was in a tent, the air close and heavy with the mingled smell of bodies and ale. It wasn’t the tent Batul had assigned to them. Orcs lay around him. Some were twitching slightly, some were snoring. All were asleep. Kobus sat propped up against a pile of gear, his head lolling on his massive chest, a mug still in one hand, a huge chunk of gristly meat in the other. Sunlight pierced the gap of the tent flap in a hot, yellow bar. When Geth felt capable of movement again, he rose, pulled his shirt and vest from under the head of an orc who had been using them as a pillow, and stepped carefully to the flap.

Opening it let more light into the tent, bringing a new moan of protest from the orc Geth had woken. The shifter ducked out into the open air quickly and let the flap fall behind him. The camp of the Angry Eyes horde lay quiet except for a few warriors making a valiant attempt to carry on their celebrations with quiet singing and music, the same strange combination of drums and bone rattles that had filled Geth’s skull through the night. A good number of warriors hadn’t even made it into tents or huts and lay asleep on the bare ground. The sun had climbed just high enough above the horizon that the softness of dawn had given way to the harsher heat and light of morning. At the center of the camp, a strong fire still burned, heating rocks for the Gatekeepers’ sweat lodge and sending a thick column of smoke into the air, but everywhere else fading embers gave up only thin threads of smoke that clung to the ground in a foul mist.

All told, the camp looked exactly how Geth felt. Vague memories of drinking, singing, and dancing with the warriors of the horde came back to his throbbing head. Something else came back to him and he reached up to touch his face above and below his eyes. Thick smears of red paint crumbled under his fingers. The other warriors of the horde, he corrected himself. He remembered taking the horde marks from Kobus’s hands.

He groaned and stumbled for the nearest campfire with orcs still around it. The lingering warriors gave him a hero’s cheer. Geth answered with a vague wave that seemed to satisfy them. A mug had been abandoned beside a big skin bag that could have held water or ale. He threw away what liquid remained in the mug and refilled it from the bag. Water. He grunted in disappointment and looked at one of the orcs.

The dream clung to him like a curse. He needed to talk to someone about it. “Gede Orshok?” he asked thickly. He’d tried to master a few simple questions in Orc on the journey from Tzaryan Keep-Wrath let him understand the language but didn’t help him speak it. The warrior, however, just shrugged. Geth tried again. “Gede Ekhaas? Gede Dhakaani?”

The orc broke out in laughter and started babbling to one of the other warriors, who also laughed. Geth considered using Wrath to find out what was so amusing, but couldn’t quite summon up the energy. Taking his mug of water, he found the shady side of a tent and squatted down on the ground.

For all that the majority of the dream had been pleasant, there had been something distinctly unnatural about it. He hadn’t dreamed about the Frostbrand in years, and he’d never dreamed about them in such a happy way. He had happy memories of the company, of course, but in his experience, those weren’t the memories that came back to him in dreams.

Coron’s death, that was more typical, though even it was something he hadn’t seen in his nightmares for a long, long time. The thought brought visions of the man’s murder rising up within him. Geth squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, choking the memory back. The effort left his stomach aching.

Why had the dream come to him at all? If he was going to dream about fighting, a battle wouldn’t have been his first choice. A good brawl would have been better. His fight with Kobus. Any number of scuffles in camps and taverns with the Frostbrand to back him up. Good-natured fights with members of the Frostbrand. People didn’t die so often in brawls as they did in battles.

Maybe, he thought, it was because of the night spent with the warriors of the horde. That would explain the strange presence of the Bonetree mound in his dream. Even so, how could the spirit of the horde-the wild unity that gave it strength-have affected him so quickly and so deeply …

Something stirred at the back of his mind, a half-buried memory. He frowned and tried to recall it, but it kept slipping away as if it didn’t want to be remembered. Geth concentrated hard, pulling back the wisps of his dream and the haze of the night. Something Batul had said. Something about the warriors of the horde sharing fires …

The old druid’s words crept into his mind like scared dogs. “Warriors arrive in the camp and fall into the horde as if they’ve been sharing a fire for days,” Batul had said. “The council is nearly ready to make a decision and getting a dozen Gatekeepers to agree on dinner usually takes weeks of debate.”

Geth’s eyes narrowed and he drew a long breath. What was going on? He raised his mug and sipped at his water.

When he lowered the mug, he saw Ekhaas coming toward him. In contrast to Geth, she didn’t look like she was suffering after the night-she might have been turned out for a Blademarks inspection. There were no horde marks on her face. Geth tried to remember if he’d seen her at all through the night. If he had, it was only in passing, a face in the shadows observing the celebrations as he took part in them.

As she passed the campfire, the orcs called out something to her. She stopped and gave them a glare of such loathing that they shrank back in silence. The hobgoblin continued on and stood over Geth.

“Why did they just call me your ‘honeycomb-dancer’?” she said in a voice that made Geth flinch.

“No idea,” he said and gulped more water.

Ekhaas’s ears tipped forward in suspicion, and her lip curled in an expression that managed to encompass both disdain and disbelief, but she crouched beside him.

“We need to talk,” she said. “Something is wrong in this camp.”

He looked at her carefully. Her eyes seemed hard, but there was something haunted in their amber depths, as if Ekhaas had seen something that unsettled her. Geth thought he could guess what that something was. “Did you have a strange dream last night?” he asked. “A dream of fighting with all your friends beside you?”

Her ears stood up sharply. “I was in a battle out of legend, wielding sword and song alongside the heroes of my people. We were fighting to reach a hill.”

“Not a hill. The Bonetree mound.” A chill passed across Geth. “Ekhaas, we had the same dream. And last night, I think Batul tried to warn me about something-”

“That the camp is on the edge of frenzy?”

“That warriors are joining the horde too easily.”

She wrinkled her nose. “The same thing. Among my people, orcs are infamous for going into battle with more enthusiasm than sense, but the mood in this camp is like a herd of tribex protecting a gravid female. Last night you and Orshok were practically painting horde marks on your faces the moment we arrived.”

Geth flushed. “You weren’t?”

“I’m a duur’kala.” A hint of Ekhaas’s normal arrogance crept into her voice. “I’m trained to inspire and manipulate people. You can’t do that effectively without learning to recognize the signs of manipulation in yourself.”

“Wait,” said Geth. “You think we’re actually being manipulated?”

“I’m certain of it.” Her ears twitched forward and her voice dropped. “It’s a subtle thing, a touch so light that it’s hard to feel it, but last night after you were swept off, I scouted the camp, watching and listening. When I found myself wanting to join in an orc campfire song, I knew something wasn’t right.” She rubbed at her temples as if the thought pained her. “Whatever is happening, it encourages those in the camp to follow their natural tendencies. In a duur’kala, the urge to sing. In orc warriors, the urge to join with the horde.” She glanced at him. “In a shifter, perhaps the urge to join the horde as well, to fight and demonstrate strength.”

He wanted to protest, but the argument made too much sense. It touched on his own suspicions and on Batul’s warning.

But there had been two parts to that warning, hadn’t there? He sat up straight, water slopping out of his mug. “Grandfather Rat! The Gatekeepers-Batul said they’re coming to a decision more quickly than normal too.”

Ekhaas bared her teeth. “I wondered that the druids could allow this to happen. They’re caught in it too. Khaavolaar.”

“How is that possible?” Geth asked. “Batul seemed to know what was happening. Why isn’t he doing something about it?”

“The manipulation may be light, but that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. And Batul did do something-he warned you.”

“But why not do more?”

She rapped her knuckles together in a rapid rhythm, and her eyes narrowed again in thought. “Whatever’s happening, it is working in accordance with the goals of the Gatekeepers,” she pointed out. “Duur’kala have used magic to inspire strength on the battlefield since the time of the Dhakaani Empire. Perhaps the druids are doing the same.”

Geth shook his head. “Batul sounded surprised at what was happening.”

“Then consider the opposite: perhaps the druids can’t do anything to prevent what’s happening …” Her voice stopped and the rhythm of her knuckles paused. Her ears stood up straight.

Geth’s gut tightened at what she had suggested. “That’s not possible!” he blurted.

“It is possible,” Ekhaas said tightly. “Did your collar protect you?”

Geth’s hand went to the collar of black stones around his throat. “Just before we met Krepis yesterday, the stones felt cold, but only for a moment. Maybe it was a warning?”

“Maybe. Or maybe whatever is causing this is something the magic of the Gatekeepers can’t block.”

“But what could-” The answer came to him before he’d finished asking the question. What power could resist the magic of the Gatekeepers to manipulate their minds? The power that the Master of Silence had tried to control in his new servants. Geth felt a chill. “Medala,” he said.

Ekhaas nodded in agreement. “We have only her word that she’s weak, and if she can overcome Gatekeeper magic, the wards that the druids have placed around her are little more than paint.”

“And she wants revenge on the Master of Silence.” Geth sat back, and it seemed to him that the stones of the collar grew a little bit colder, as if in confirmation of his idea. Encouraging the growth of the horde and pushing the Gatekeepers to make their decision to march would get the kalashtar closer to her goal-and if Medala was manipulating the horde, it would explain the appearance of the Bonetree mound in both his dream and Ekhaas’s. Still, it hardly seemed possible. “She can’t be this powerful, can she? She couldn’t really control the minds of a horde of orc warriors and a council of senior Gatekeepers all at the same time, could she?”

“It takes very little to encourage a mule to go where it wants to go,” said Ekhaas. “If this is Medala, she’s not controlling minds, only intensifying emotions that are already present. I doubt that one orc in a hundred would have any idea they were being manipulated. Medala herself might not even be specifically aware of the individual minds she’s influencing.” Her ears flicked. “I wonder if she thinks she’s helping.”

“Helping?” Geth’s voice felt strangled in his throat. “Grandfather Rat, what do we do now? Where’s Orshok? Maybe he-”

“I looked for him,” Ekhaas said. “It seems he joined the other Gatekeepers in the sweat lodge last night.” There was a note of finality in Ekhaas’s voice, as if the young druid had been irrevocably separated from them.

Geth looked up and across the still peaceful camp toward the bulk of the Gatekeepers’ sweat lodge. “We need to talk to Batul.”

“I’ve been to the lodge. No one enters except at the word of a druid. The vaults of Volaar Draal aren’t sealed so tight. While the horde simmers, the Gatekeepers stew in their own juices.”

“Wolf and Rat, we have to do something!”

“Do we?” Ekhaas looked at him. “What danger is there? It seems that Medala-and again, we don’t know for certain that it is her-is working toward the same goals as the Gatekeepers.”

“Maybe I just don’t like idea of her messing with my mind!” Geth snapped. The hair on his arms and on the back of his neck was rising.

“I’ll agree to that, whether it’s Medala or not-”

Geth snarled at the hobgoblin. “Stop saying that! It has to be her. Who else could it be?”

She gave him a cool stare. “There are many things beneath the moons of Eberron that are capable of twisting the thoughts in your head, Geth. A duur’kala of no great power could make you grovel.” He bared his teeth at her, but she only smiled, showing her own teeth. “A duur’kala would have better sense than to try-control often leaves anger behind.” She looked thoughtfully across the camp. “I will admit, though, that I can’t think of any better explanation for what’s happening here than Medala’s influence. Maybe there is something we can do.”

Geth followed her gaze. The night’s celebrations had left his sense of the camp’s layout confused, but he couldn’t forget what lay in the direction Ekhaas stared: Medala’s tent. His rising hair bristled. “Tiger’s blood! I hope you’re going to say we can kill her.”

“She’s allied herself with the Gatekeepers. We can’t kill her.” Ekhaas stood. “But we can talk to her, perhaps confirm our suspicions.”

“I don’t need them confirmed. Ekhaas, did you listen to the stories we told you about her? If she does still have her powers, she’s dangerous-and capable of cutting right through Gatekeeper magic.”

“Then it’s fortunate I’m not a Gatekeeper. A duur’kala can protect herself. If you want to count a tiger’s teeth, you have to put your head in its mouth.” Ekhaas’s grin turned mocking. “If you want to come with me, my magic can protect you too.”

He growled at her again, guzzled his water, then flung the mug away and climbed to his feet. “I’m coming,” he said. The idea made his stomach twist, though not so much as the thought of doing nothing.

The way to Medala’s tent also led past the tent Batul had assigned to them. Geth ducked inside while Ekhaas waited, dug a shirt that didn’t reek of orcish ale out of his pack and pulled it on, then opened the bundle that contained his great gauntlet. It was the work of only moments to pull on the armored sleeve and adjust the straps that held it in place. He clenched his right fist as he stepped out of the tent, savoring the clash of metal on metal. Ekhaas raised an eyebrow.

“That won’t protect you from psionic attack,” she said.

He bared his teeth. “Maybe not, but it makes me feel better, and it’s a weapon I don’t have to draw if Medala tries something, and duur’kala magic turns out to be no better than Gatekeeper magic.”

She gave him a baleful look.

The sight of the black metal gauntlet attracted stares and calls of appreciation for a fine weapon as they crossed the camp. Ekhaas glowered at every call, but Geth felt a certain pride at the attention. It had been a long time since he’d thought of himself as a hero. It felt good.

“You’re swaggering,” Ekhaas observed after a time.

“What about it?”

“I wonder if it could be a symptom of the manipulation. We need to be careful. We need to be aware of what we do.”

Geth’s warm pride vanished in a bitter chill. Batul had something similar, hadn’t he? Geth struggled against the warning. “It’s not all manipulation, is it?” he asked. “You said what’s happening is based on what we already feel.”

Ekhaas glanced at him, and her expression seemed to soften for a moment. “Based on, yes,” she said. “But the best lies have a kernel of truth, even the lies we tell ourselves.”

Before he could begin to puzzle out what she meant by that, she began to sing.

He’d experienced the touch of duur’kala magic before. Ekhaas’s songs had an ancient power in them, something that seemed to echo the music of creation. She’d used her magic to heal him, and it felt like his body had been dipped in sunlight. She’d used magic to speed their travel across the Shadow Marches, and he’d felt as though he could have kept pace with the eternal march of the moons.

The song that she sang now was different again. Geth felt it dip down into him and draw up something sharp and clear, like water from a deep well. A dullness he hadn’t even been aware of seemed to slip away. Even when Ekhaas stopped singing, the echoes of her song lingered in his mind. Geth took a deep breath and felt more focused than he ever had before. “Grandmother Wolf! Is this like the power of Ashi’s dragonmark?”

“Similar, but not so powerful,” Ekhaas told him. “It’s probably more akin to the magic in your collar, but without the vulnerability of Gatekeeper magic.”

Geth looked around, marveling at the sense of clarity the song had brought with it, then stopped sharply. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “You had an audience.”

Up ahead was Medala’s isolated tent, its flap folded open against its painted walls. Medala stood in the gap. By daylight, she looked even thinner and more wretched than before. When Dandra had first shared her story with him and Singe, she had drawn them into the mental link of kesh and shown them memories of the woman Medala had been before falling prey to Dah’mir. Medalashana had been a studious, slightly plump woman with a sharp and curious mind. There seemed little of her left in Medala, Geth thought.

Her piercing eyes were fixed on them. As soon as Ekhaas looked up, the kalashtar smiled and vanished back into the tent.

Ekhaas’s ears lay back. “Khaavolaar.”

Geth shrugged. “We couldn’t exactly have surprised her anyway,” he said. He braced himself and marched forward.

The warriors standing guard over Medala’s tent were not the same ones as had been there the night before, but they wore identical expressions of frustration with the duty. They watched Geth and Ekhaas approach, but made no move to stop them as they passed. Geth stopped at the flap of the tent. “Medala!” he called.

There was no response.

“Medala!” he said again. “We’re here to talk to you.”

“Then come in and talk.” Medala’s response emerged from the tent like a dry breeze. “Unless you’re too frightened of me.”

Geth glanced at Ekhaas. She jerked her head at the flap, and he ducked his head and entered the tent. Medala was once again seated on her sleeping platform, her eyes dead as she watched them. Geth watched her in return. Was it his imagination, or did her eyes flicker with annoyance as Ekhaas followed him inside? He didn’t have a chance to ask any further. Medala glared at both of them.

“You shield yourselves,” she said. “You suspect me.”

Ekhaas’s cedar smoke voice was calm. “You’re mistaken, kalashtar. The spell I sang was meant only to clear the fog of ale from Geth’s thick mind.”

Geth’s back stiffened at the comment. If Ekhaas had hoped that insulting him would earn approval from Medala, though, her plan failed completely. Medala gave her a withering look. “Don’t try to trick me, hobgoblin. I know more of the mind than you could ever learn.” This time, Ekhaas stiffened. Medala’s dark eyes glittered in the gloom of the tent. “Why should my enemies come before me with their thoughts armored like knights of Thrane? Why should they fear someone who has lost her powers?” She sat forward. “Answer me those questions, Ekhaas duur’kala.”

Geth flinched and bared his teeth. Batul hadn’t introduced the hobgoblin when he’d shown Medala to them the night before. He was certain of it. Ekhaas just drew herself up and met Medala’s eyes. “You know my name. How?”

“You already know or you wouldn’t have shielded yourself.” Medala settled back like a queen on a throne. “The minds of the Gatekeepers aren’t so well-protected or disciplined as they believe.”

“Grandmother Wolf!” Even with Ekhaas’s magic echoing in him, cold dread filled Geth. He ripped Wrath from his scabbard and held the sword tight. “You admit it? You still have your powers?”

She looked at him and his twilight-purple blade without even blinking. “Why should I hide the truth from those who see it?” she asked. Her lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “No one fears the weak-or those they believe to be weak. But who would have trusted Medala if they knew she was strong? This prison the druids have created couldn’t hold me if I chose to leave. The only chains on me are the ones I forge from my own need. I cannot take my revenge on Dah’mir and the Master of Silence alone. I must have allies!”

Foamy spittle flecked her lips. Her fingers clenched the orc clothing she wore and gouged at the flesh beneath. Muscles stood out beneath the fine skin of her neck and face. The memory of what she had once done to him-pierced him through with pain and stopped his breath with her will alone-forced Geth back a step and brought Wrath a little higher, ready to fall.

Ekhaas stood firm, though her ears were pressed back and Geth could see that her hands weren’t far from her own sword. “So you pull on the emotions of the orcs,” she said. “You push at the Gatekeepers. You send the horde dreams of glorious battle.”

Medala’s neck almost creaked as she turned her head to look at the hobgoblin. “Dreams are forbidden to kalashtar-we are the exiles of Dal Quor-but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand the power of dreams. I may not be able to see into the dreams of others, but I can whisper in their ears.” The tension seemed to drain out of her as she talked until she seemed almost calm again. “I make the horde stronger. My powers bring the orcs a unity greater than they have known since the time of the Daelkyr War. The Gatekeepers have fallen far in ten thousand years. I don’t know that they could bring together a force capable of dealing with a daelkyr, even one still bound by the magics of the ancestors, on their own.”

She drew a deep breath and met Geth’s eyes over his sword. “Will you strike down an ally who can turn the coming battle in your favor?”

Geth ground his teeth together. His sword trembled. “You? Yes,” he growled. “We brought the same warning you did. The Gatekeepers know about the danger from the Master of Silence. If you die, the horde will still march!”

Medala lifted her head. “But will it march in time?”

Her fearless, arrogant face brought out all of Geth’s fury at being forced to stand and talk with a woman who deserved to be dead. Wrath snapped back and flashed forward.

Ekhaas’s sword flashed as well. In less than a heartbeat, she drew the weapon and thrust it forward-across Wrath. Though the two swords had been forged thousands of years apart, they were both of Dhakaani design, with one edge smooth and the other jagged. The jagged edges locked, and Ekhaas forced Geth’s killing blow aside.

“Kravait!” she barked in Goblin. With Wrath in his hand, Geth understood the command. “Stand down now!”

It was hard thing not to pull his sword free and strike again, but he managed it. Ekhaas thought more quickly than he did. The words that might have been Medala’s last rolled in the pit of his stomach. He stared at Medala. “What are you talking about? Why does it matter when the horde marches?”

The mad kalashtar hadn’t moved. Her expression hadn’t even changed. “Batul claims to see the future, but his gift is weak. I’ve seen the future too, but I looked on it with both eyes. When I said that Virikhad’s struggles to take control of me flung us into a place that was elsewhere, I kept some secrets to myself. Time moved differently in the place that he took us. We saw things there while we struggled. Events. Possibilities. Certainties.”

The pupils of Medala’s eyes had shrunk as if she stared into a bright light, and they seemed fixed on something very far in the distance. Her voice was soft. Geth felt the pressure from Ekhaas’s sword ease as she let her weapon fall away, but he didn’t try to raise Wrath again. He just listened.

“We saw,” she said, “Dah’mir’s wounding at your hand. We saw his weakness and his escape, your fear and your escape. Not everything was clear to us-only the entwined paths of those we hated. We saw when you and Dah’mir came together in Zarash’ak, but not what happened when you parted. We saw what happened in Taruuzh Kraat after a fashion. We saw Dah’mir’s seizing of the ancient binding stones. We saw the power of the dragonmark break Dah’mir’s hold on Dandra. We saw him flee, and we knew that he fled to Sharn-but that was when our struggled ended, and I was returned to the Bonetree mound.”

Pin-prick eyes shifted to focus on him. “All those things were possibilities that became certainties, but there were more possibilities that remained and three that I saw most clear. First, that my enemies would meet Dah’mir in Sharn. Second, that my enemies would meet me in this place, the Sharvat Vvaraak. Third-” She blinked and stopped.

“What?” asked Geth. “What was third?”

Medala looked at him. Her pupils had resumed a normal size and when she spoke, her voice was once again as harsh as sand. “Third, that Dah’mir might return to the Master of Silence.”

“Might?”

“It is a possibility. All of these things are possibilities-or were. You met me here and that possibility became a certainty. I know from your story that Singe and Dandra went to Sharn, so that possibility has become a certainty as well.”

Geth felt like someone had grabbed hold of his spine and was stretching it. “What about the third possibility?”

“It hasn’t happened yet, but of all the things I saw, I know when it will happen.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “In the possibility I see, the blue moon is full and bright on the horizon at dusk.”

The blue moon-the moon of Rhaan, so small it might almost have been a pale azure star. Geth struggled trying to guess when it would be full again, but Ekhaas came up with the answer first. “Eight days from now,” she said.

Medala opened her eyes and nodded. “It will be Rhaan’s first fullness since I returned. The horde must be at the Bonetree mound when it rises.”

“Do the Gatekeepers know this?” Geth demanded.

Medala looked at him coldly. “They don’t need to know,” she said. “It would distract them. The horde will be there. I created it. It is mine.” A hand jerked up to touch her face. “These are the angry eyes!”

“What about Sharn?” Ekhaas asked. “What if Singe and Dandra stop Dah’mir there?”

Medala cocked her head. “Dah’mir would not return to the Master of Silence if he failed. He will find what he seeks in Sharn. He will not be stopped. Anyone who stands against him will die.”

“You can’t know that.” The hand on Geth’s spine curled into a fist. “You said that Dah’mir’s return was still only a possibility.”

Medala’s lips twisted again-but this time they curved into a horrible smile. “He will not be stopped. The vengeance upon him will be mine.” Her eyes bored into Geth’s. “You should consider that yourself. We travel the same path for a time. You would be wise to stay on it.”

Her head rose sharply, as if at some distant noise, and after a moment, she rose to her feet. “Come with me,” she said. “You’ll want to see this.”

Wrath had come up the instant that she moved, but Medala walked right past Geth without even looking at the sword. He stared at her exposed back, then glanced at Ekhaas. Her amber eyes were narrow-and watching Medala’s thin back, as well.

We can end this, Geth thought. We know the danger now. One blow from either of us …

Medala paused in midstride. “It takes no power to know what an enemy with a sword and an easy target is thinking,” she said without turning, “Before you act, you would do well to ask yourselves if I have told you everything that I know. What might I have left out of my story? What will happen if I die now?” She took another calm step and passed out of the tent. Geth’s hand tightened on Wrath’s hilt, until his fingers ached.

“She’s right,” growled Ekhaas.

“Tiger’s blood! I know!” Geth let Wrath fall again and leaped after the kalashtar. She had stopped just outside the tent. Geth pulled up short at her side and stared around in amazement.

The camp was absolutely silent. Orcs drifted past them-alone, in pairs, or in bands-but none of them said anything or made any sound as they walked to the center of the camp and the Gatekeeper’s sweat lodge. Mugs of ale and gaeth’ad were left abandoned beside campfires. Food was left to burn on the flames. Geth followed the orcs’ eyes and stifled a curse. The pillar of smoke that had risen beside the sweat lodge had stopped. The fire had been extinguished.

The surface of the Sharvat Vvaraak was nearly perfectly level. He could see nothing beyond the nearest ranks of tents except the humped peak of the lodge. One of the tall standing stones that he had spied when they arrived in the camp was nearby though. He sheathed Wrath and sprinted to it. The surface was worn nearly smooth with time, but there were crevices and nooks enough for a shifter to scale. The metal of his gauntlet scraping on rock, he swarmed up the stone until he hugged its narrow top and could peer down over tents and orcs.

Hundreds of warriors gathered around the sweat lodge in silent expectation. The largest and most important among them jostled quietly for position close to the single enormous hide that covered the doorway of the lodge. Geth felt a flash of angry jealousy-he should have been there with them, a hero taking his rightful place among the mighty-but he shook his head sharply. The feeling was only some lingering echo of Medala’s power. He had a place fighting with the horde, but not blindly. For once in his life, he had to think, not just act.

The hide covering the lodge doorway twitched. The crowd grew still. A hand threw the hide aside. Steam billowed out of the lodge in a great cloud and out of the steam stepped Batul, flanked by two other elderly orcs. Geth risked falling to get a hand on Wrath as Batul raised his arms, a crook-headed hunda stick in one hand, and called out in Orc.

“The council has made a decision. Make ready to leave the Mirror of Vvaraak. The horde of Angry Eyes marches on the Bonetree mound!”

The roar that erupted from the throats of the gathered orcs seemed to shake the air itself. Cold settled over Geth. He let himself slip back down from the standing stone. Medala and Ekhaas were waiting at the bottom. They must have heard Batul’s announcement. There could have been no missing it. Ekhaas’s face was tight.

Medala’s, however, was as joyful as those of the orc warriors who now streamed back out through the camp. “Aren’t you pleased, Geth?” she shouted over the chaotic din. “You’ll fight the Master of Silence! You’ll fight Dah’mir!”

Geth’s gut clenched. Words failed him. They didn’t, however, fail Ekhaas. She looked at Medala with wary fear. “This place that Virikhad’s power took you,” she said. “Where was it? What was it?”

Medala’s lips drew back, and her teeth flashed. “You’ve guessed, haven’t you, Ekhaas duur’kala? It was everywhere. It was nowhere. It was the place where madmen go when they have the power to tear holes in the fabric of space. I have been where Dah’mir would give his tongue to go-oh, if he knew what his twisted experiments had wrought!” She looked at them both, and her pupils were once again tiny black dots in her eyes. “I’ve seen the brine pools where the elder brains of the illithids dream. I’ve seen empty palaces that wait for their daelkyr masters to return. I’ve been to Xoriat!”

CHAPTER 9

Natrac knew it was late morning or early afternoon only by the complaint of his empty stomach, though even that wasn’t strictly reliable-he had woken with a sour taste in his mouth and a vague memory of having vomited in the night. There was no other way to judge the passage of time.

There was no hint of daylight in the small room where he’d been dumped or in the larger chamber visible through the barred window set in the room’s door. Many centuries before, the chamber had likely been some fine lady’s bedroom and the smaller room, a large closet. Or maybe a nursery or a maid’s room. Many, many centuries before, when Malleon’s Gate had been the wealthy heart of Sharn and the great towers had been mere saplings. Since then, the rooms-the entire grand house-had seen a hundred different uses, a hundred refashionings, probably a dozen blockings and unblockings of the window that had once let light into the chamber.

For the last twenty years or so, the smaller room had been a cell, the larger chamber an … interview room. Natrac remembered the day when the conversion had been made very clearly. He’d had the window blocked up again specifically so prisoners would have no clue to the passage of day or night.

And for the fifteenth time since he’d woken, he muttered, “My own damn cell. The Keeper take you, Biish!”

Not that the possibility he might one day need to escape from his own cell had ever slipped passed him. Once the throbbing that the hobgoblin’s club had left in his head had eased, Natrac had crawled over to the door and pulled himself up to the barred window, surveying the chamber beyond and blessing the orc blood that let him see in the dark. The chamber was empty except for a rough table and two chairs. His knife-hand, stripped from the stump of his right wrist, lay on the table, well out of reach.

He’d gone to a corner of the cell and counted four bricks in and eighteen high. The cleverly fitted false brick he’d installed in secret had still been there. Unfortunately, the hollow behind where he’d hidden a knife and a few tools had been empty. Someone had cleaned it out. The brick hadn’t been as secret as he thought.

After that there hadn’t been much to do but wait. Natrac passed the time alternately cursing Biish, the idiot changelings of the Broken Mirror, the treacherous old goblin bartender, and himself. A return not just to Sharn but to Malleon’s Gate-what had he been thinking? Had surviving his adventures with Geth, Singe, and Dandra really given him that much of a sense of invulnerability? Had he been this stupid when he’d been young? Lords of the Host, he thought, it was a miracle he’d lived this long.

Worst of all, his misguided attempt at locating word of Dah’mir through Sharn’s underworld meant that Dandra and Singe would not just have one less ally on which to rely, but that they would almost certainly start using time they needed to locate the dragon on finding him instead. He’d told Dandra he’d be back by dawn. She might already have started worrying about him. He had become a liability. He had to find a way out of this.

He knew Biish, though. Getting out of the hobgoblin’s hands wasn’t going to be easy.

He looked up as the door in the outer chamber opened and several people, to judge by the sound of footsteps, entered. They brought a dim light with them, lighting up the square of the barred window in the cell door. That was interesting, he thought. It meant that not all of Biish’s gang were goblinoids. Someone in the other chamber needed light to see. He rose to his feet.

The large and hairy face of the bugbear from the tavern appeared at the barred window. Natrac glared at him. “Awake,” the creature grunted in Goblin and moved back.

Biish took his place and gave Natrac a leer that showed all of his oversized teeth. “I never thought I’d see you back in Sharn, Natrac,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Asking myself the same thing.” Natrac met his gaze without flinching. “How have you been, Biter?”

Biish’s skin was a deep orange color that turned deeper when he flushed. His ears lay back flat. “No one calls me Biter now, taat!”

From the utter silence that fell among those who had accompanied Biish into the outer chamber, Natrac guessed that the hobgoblin might actually be right. He held his voice steady, not allowing himself to show any sign of fear, and pushed himself up to the bars on the window. “I guess the chib can have people call him whatever he wants,” he said. “Have you been taking care of my affairs, Biish?”

That got a bark of mocking laughter out of him. “They haven’t been your affairs for a long time, Natrac.”

“I heard you closed the arena.”

“You could have sold it to me when I asked, and you would have made money,” Biish said with a cold smile. “You could have joined your gang with mine, and you might still be in power today instead of stuck in a cell you built yourself. The Longtooth is one of the most powerful gangs in Malleon’s Gate these days.”

Biish always had loved to gloat. Natrac let the hobgoblin boast while he looked past him to the band of thugs he had brought into the room. The bugbear, of course. Another hobgoblin. Two goblins, one of which looked very familiar and who glanced away when Natrac’s eyes met his. Natrac remembered him-a street rat with such a talent for picking pockets that he’d brought him into his gang personally. Not everyone had stood up against Biish’s control, it seemed. Natrac’s jaw tightened in anger, but he forced his gaze past the little traitor.

The final person in the room was the one holding the dim light-source, a small lamp. The only non-goblinoid-and the only woman-she was a half-elf, young but with hard and cunning eyes. Her hair was blond with a hint of red and bound into a knot at the back of her head. Her clothes were worn leather, and the only visible weapon she carried was a dagger at her hip, but Natrac had a feeling that wasn’t the only weapon on her. Somehow she didn’t look out of place among Biish’s guard. Instead, they looked out of place in her presence.

And she was watching him.

Natrac wrenched his gaze from her and back to Biish as he finally ran out of words. “If you’re so powerful,” he said to the hobgoblin, “then you have nothing to worry about from me. I’m out of this game. You know it.”

“Are you asking me to let you go?” Biish’s wolf ears rose. “For one, I don’t think you are out of the game. I know you wouldn’t have dared to come back to Sharn and Malleon’s Gate unless you had some important reason. For another, there’s the matter of why I’m using your fine old headquarters instead of mine.” A flush crept back into his face. “They still talk about the explosion in some taverns.”

Natrac looked him straight in the eyes. “As long as you were running me out of Sharn, I wanted to be sure you had something to remember me by.”

Biish’s teeth snapped together-but any response he might have made was lost as the door of the outer chamber burst open and another goblin stumbled through. “Biish!” the little creature said. “Lord Storm is back. He’s waiting for you in the meeting room.”

Natrac thought Biish looked like he was going to explode. If the hobgoblin had been able to tear himself in two-one to stay and harass Natrac, the other to go and meet this “Lord Storm”-he probably would have. After a moment, though, Biish leaned close to the bars of the cell.

“Don’t go anywhere, Natrac,” he growled. “We have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe you’ll tell me how you lost your hand-and maybe I’ll finish what someone else started.” He whirled away and stomped out the chamber door. “Dabrak, sharpen your axes! Benti, come with me.”

The bugbear stood up straight with an eager expression on his face. The half-elf just nodded. They and the rest of Biish’s retinue followed the head of the Longtooth gang out of the chamber. The door slammed shut and darkness fell over the room once more. Natrac sagged in relief.

“Gray-haired Olladra,” he prayed with desperate piety, “see me out of this, and I’ll build a shrine to you in Zarash’ak.”

And may the Sovereign Host bless the arrival of Lord Storm, he added silently. Presumably he was some associate of Biish’s and a major one if he took precedence over Biish’s revenge. Natrac couldn’t complain. He had a reprieve, and he needed to make the most of it. He stood upright and rattled the door of the cell with his hand. Or tried to rattle it. The door was as solid as the day he’d watched it installed. He stepped back and cursed. He wasn’t getting out that way!

But maybe there was something else he could do. He glanced down at the floor.

When he had the small room converted into a cell, he also had the floor reinforced with heavy planks. He didn’t want anyone escaping by ripping up the floorboards. While the carpenter was laying the new planks though, he’d discovered something: hidden beneath a loose board was a cavity and at the bottom of the cavity was a fine screen that looked into the room below. From the lower room, the screen was all but invisible, hidden by shadow and a panel of carved wood.

Magical scrying could be foiled, but there was little that could be done to counter simple eavesdropping. Natrac had the carpenter construct a new access to the hidden cavity, paid him handsomely, and moved him and his family out of Sharn to make sure it stayed a secret. He began holding his meetings in the lower room, and those left in the room to speak in private began to wonder how he learned of their conversations.

If Biish had been using his cell all these years, maybe he was using his meeting room too. Eavesdropping was a small thing to build an escape on, but it was a start.

At the base of one wall, Natrac pressed his hand against a section of plank and pushed it forward, then to the left. An old catch released, and the section rose just enough that he could get his fingernails into a fine groove and turn it on a hidden pivot.

Underneath, the cavity and its screen remained just as he remembered. Natrac cursed silently and wondered if he should have hidden his escape kit beneath the plank.

Light was coming up from the room beneath, though-light and Biish’s voice. Moving carefully, Natrac lay flat on the floor and peered down into the cavity. The view was restricted, but he could see Biish sitting down on one side of a table. The half-elf woman, Benti, stood behind him. Someone else, just a moving shadow and quick footsteps, paced back and forth on the other side of the room. It sounded like Biish was in the middle of offering his visitor an apology.

“… didn’t expect that you would turn up so late last night, Storm.” Biish had left off speaking Goblin, and Natrac guessed that Lord Storm didn’t understand the language. “I had business to attend to.”

“I know what your business was. Charging around Malleon’s Gate hunting for some changelings! Are they paying you? No!”

Lord Storm’s voice was loud and unrestrained-and the sound of it brought Natrac’s eyes open wide. He jammed two knuckles of his fist into his mouth and bit down to keep himself from crying out. A moment later, Storm stopped pacing and stepped up to the table. Natrac bit down harder as anger and fear beyond even what he felt for Biish surged in his belly.

Lord Storm was Vennet d’Lyrandar!

As Biish’s orange skin turned red with outrage, Natrac studied Vennet. The last time he had seen him in Taruuzh Kraat, the half-elf had been spattered with old blood, his clothes torn, his hair matted, and his eyes filled with madness. He’d cleaned up since then, with new clothes and clean hair. He could probably have passed among strangers without rousing suspicion, but Natrac had known him for years, had sailed with him from Zarash’ak to the remote port of Yrlag and back many times before Vennet had turned on him. The intensity of madness was still in his eyes. Since he’d devoted himself to Dah’mir, something had happened to crack Vennet’s mind. Not that he’d been entirely sane before. Natrac’s right arm tingled with phantom pain. In service to the cults of the Dragon Below, Vennet had been the one who’d hacked off his hand, leaving it as bait to lure Dandra into a trap.

What was he doing here?

Then a new fear cut into Natrac as Biish opened his mouth to respond to Vennet’s scorn. If the hobgoblin told Vennet who he had imprisoned upstairs, there would be no point in trying to escape. Vennet-and Dah’mir-would know he, Dandra, and the others had escaped Taruuzh Kraat. He squeezed his eyes shut, afraid to watch what unfolded.

Biish’s rage saved him. Natrac’s eyes popped open again as Biish unleashed a blistering storm of furious curses and roared out, “Your gold buys you and your freakish birds a hiding place and my services, you lunatic dog! If you think it puts me at you beck and call, then the Keeper take your soul and I’ll send it to him myself!”

The hobgoblin was on his feet, but Vennet just leaned into his bellows as if leaning into a sea wind. There was even a beatific half-smile on his face. As Biish ran out of breath, Vennet straightened up and said calmly, “You’re afraid of me.”

Biish made a strangled noise and might have leaped across the table at Vennet if Benti hadn’t held him back. Vennet just pulled out a chair and sat down. He looked up Biish. “Sit,” he said. “We have things to discuss. Are your preparations ready?”

Breathing hard, his fists curling and uncurling, Biish stared at him and slowly eased himself into his chair. His ears, though, were still flat to his head. “Mazo,” he said. “We’re ready. The plans are drawn up. We have two possible targets for the first part of the operation. One is preferred, but if we can’t get it, we’ll get the other.”

Vennet pressed his fingers together in front of his face and sat back. His gaze was on Benti. “There is the matter of someone to take the helm.”

“You’re looking at her,” Biish said, jerking his head at the woman. “This is Benti Morren.”

Vennet’s eyes glittered. “Show me,” he said.

Natrac watched as Benti unfastened a wide leather bracer on her right arm and held her arm out for Vennet’s inspection. The bright colors of a dragonmark traced the pale skin on the inside of her forearm. The half-orc stared at it. Half-elves could only bear one of two dragonmarks-and he’d never heard of a bearer of the Mark of Detection standing at a helm.

But half-elves also manifested the Mark of Storm, the mark of House Lyrandar.

The same mark that Vennet bore. Natrac frowned. If Benti carried the Mark of Storm, but not the name of Lyrandar, she might be a renegade from the house. But so was Vennet. Why did he need someone else with the mark? Why was he concealing his own power?

Vennet’s lips twitched, a look of pity and disdain flitting across his face. “A poor thing, but it will do,” he said, sitting back. Natrac saw Vennet’s shoulders, where his own dragonmark was located, shift in discomfort. Vennet reached up to scratch himself as if unaware he was doing so. From above, Natrac caught a glimpse down the back of his shirt.

He spat his fingers out of his mouth in disgust and horror. At Tzaryan Keep a month before, it had seemed as if the skin around Vennet’s dragonmark was reddened and irritated with scabs in spots. Now it was utterly raw, the colors of the mark marred with big patches of crusted blood and yellow-white infection.

If Biish or Benti could see it, they gave no sign. Benti seemed more put-off by his dismissal of her dragonmark. “It will have to do,” she said, fastening the bracer around her arm once more. “You don’t have anyone but me.”

Her voice was smooth but with an edge to it, like a purring cat or a fine knife. Vennet just gave her a fleeting smile. “As you say,” he said. “And the second part of the operation?”

Biish’s ears twitched and stood up. “Leave,” he said with a glance at Benti. She nodded once and walked out of Natrac’s field of vision. A moment later, the door of the meeting room opened and closed. From a pouch at his belt, Biish produced a piece of folded paper and smoothed it out. “There are a lot of them,” he said.

Vennet’s expression darkened. “If you tell me that you can’t handle it, I’m not going to be happy. It won’t be any more difficult than the other three.”

“I’m not saying I can’t do it. It’s just going to take longer.” Heavy fingers sketched on the tabletop. “If we start with a few at various locations, the rest will gather at a central spot to defend themselves and once they’re there …” He looked at Vennet intently. “We’ll need to adjust the timing. We’ll have your help as before?”

“Of course. You don’t even need to take all of the targets on the list as long as you get most of them. We need seventeen.” Vennet raised an eyebrow. “You’re certain it will work?”

Biish bared his teeth. “I’ve had some experience at this. Humans and goblins usually run around in confusion during a raid. Halflings go to ground. Hobgoblins and dwarves move to a perimeter.” His ears stood up. “Kalashtar cluster together.”

Vennet laughed. “Storm at dawn! After tonight, Biish, your name will be known far beyond Malleon’s Gate!”

It felt to Natrac as if the air in his lungs had turned to sand. He didn’t dare even to breathe. Kalashtar? Tonight? Dol Arrah’s mercy, he thought, what is Dah’mir up to?

Biish only grunted, but his ears bent forward, betraying his excitement. Vennet rose to his feet. “Your people have been scouting Overlook over the last few days, Biish? They all know the district? We only have one chance at this. Nothing can go wrong.” He leaned across the table and the madness in his eyes found its way to his voice. “Nothing.”

But Biish rose as well. “Nothing will go wrong,” he snarled.

“Let’s be sure of that,” said Vennet. “Let’s you and I go up to Overlook together and have a last look around. Whatever you were busy doing when I arrived, I’m sure it can wait.”

Biish said something in Goblin that Natrac didn’t recognize. He couldn’t tell if Vennet did or not. The half-elf simply stood up, utterly calm and stepped away from the table and out of sight for a moment. When he reappeared, he wore a wide-brimmed hat that hid his face entirely from Natrac’s view. “If you don’t want to go together then, I want a report before it all begins. When you’re ready, come and see me. You know where to find me.”

Whether it was some expression on Vennet’s hidden face or merely his words, Natrac couldn’t tell, but Biish’s ears lay back in unease. He hesitated for a moment. “We’ll go to the upper city together.”

Vennet chuckled. “I thought you’d find that a more attractive idea.” He adjusted his hat like a dandy. “Here’s to an evening that will reward both of us, Biish.”

He stepped past the hobgoblin, heading for the unseen door of the room. Biish followed him and a moment later the door closed behind both men. Natrac heard Biish bellowing for Dabrak the bugbear.

And finally he could breathe again, though the air burned in his throat. Slowly, he closed the cavity so that the section of plank that hid it blended seamlessly with the floor once more, and pushed himself upright. His joints ached from lying motionless and tense for so long. Vennet and Biish were moving to kidnap kalashtar from Overlook that very night. The Dark Six only knew what would happen to them afterward. Vennet hadn’t mentioned Dah’mir’s name, but Natrac had heard the dragon in his voice as surely as if he’d been in the room.

The danger that he, Singe, Dandra, and Ashi had come all the way to Sharn to warn the kalashtar about was ready to break like a storm-and he was stuck in a cell, unable to do anything about it! He put his hand across his forehead and groaned. “Kuv shek, kuv shek, kuv shek!”

Not that there’d been any doubt about it before, but there was even less now: he had to get out. There had to be some way. He rose and turned to examine the door once more.

Benti stood at the barred window, watching him in silence.

The shock of her unexpected presence and the urgency of what he had discovered ground together inside him. He choked and fought for speech. She beat him to it. “So Biish didn’t know all your secrets after all.”

Natrac just stared at her as he tried to collect himself. There was a faint glow, paler than moonlight and plainly magical, shimmering from a ring on one of her fingers-probably just enough light for her to see in the dark chamber without alerting him. The faint shadows that it cast gave her face a calculating look, as if she was sizing him up and trying to determine how best to use what she had just discovered.

In that moment, two ideas flicked through Natrac’s mind. One was insanely desperate: throw himself on Benti’s mercy and beg her to warn the kalashtar. Biish had sent her out of the room as he and Vennet had talked. She might not know everything the two men had discussed. She was still, however, one of Biish’s people. She almost certainly knew something of what was coming already, and it probably didn’t bother her.

The second idea caught and lingered. If she was looking for a way to use what she had seen, maybe he could find a way to use her. He looked at Benti and tried to think like she must have been thinking, like a young and ambitious criminal with a secret her chib didn’t know.

It was easy. He’d been there once himself. Natrac thrust his jaw forward to show his tusks and smiled around them. “It’s a good spot to listen,” he said. “And to watch.” He tapped the inside of his right forearm meaningfully. Benti’s eyes flickered, and he saw her turn her right arm, the one with the dragonmark, away slightly. He just kept his smile steady, fighting the need for escape, and asked, “Maybe you want to know what they talked about after you left?”

“I can find that out easily enough-although it must have been significant to make Biish leave you.” The outer door of the chamber stood very slightly ajar-Benti had probably left it that way so the sounds of its closing wouldn’t give her away-and Biish’s shouts rumbled through the gap. Benti’s gaze remained on Natrac. “I came up here to talk to you before Biish did, but it looks like I didn’t need to hurry. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll come back to you eventually. He has a long memory.”

“I’m familiar with it,” Natrac said. He didn’t look away from her, but his mind was racing. She hardly seemed more than intrigued by the hidden compartment. Maybe she was bluffing. Maybe she had some other way of listening in to Biish’s private conversations already. The only criminals Natrac had ever encountered who weren’t interested in knowing what their bosses were up to were either terrified or stupid, and Benti didn’t seem to be either. He changed his tactics. “He’s not much more than a thug with luck and a little brain. What brings someone like you to work for him?”

Benti’s delicate eyebrows arched. “Motive. Opportunity. The right talent at the right time.” Then, to his frustration, she changed the topic. “Did you know that the Sentinel Marshals still have an active warrant for you, Natrac?”

“Do they?” Natrac asked. It was a struggle to keep himself calm. Benti knew he wanted to escape, he was certain of it. He was also certain that she knew she had all of the power in their unspoken negotiations-she was the one on the other side of the door. She was toying with him.

There had to be something she wanted though, especially if she’d come up here so quickly after leaving Biish’s side. Natrac stepped right up to the bars. “I suppose you’re wondering why an old ganglord who fled both a rival and the Sentinel Marshals would risk coming back to Sharn.”

“Actually, I was wondering what you knew about our Lord Storm.”

Natrac tried to conceal the surprise that passed through him, but Benti smiled at the slight widening of his eyes. “You want out, don’t you, Natrac? Help me and maybe I’ll help you.” She didn’t wait for a response. Her voice dropped slightly. “Biish was so excited at getting his old nemesis in his hands that he didn’t think to try and find out what you’d been doing in Malleon’s Gate. I asked a few questions though. You were busy last night, Natrac. I don’t know who this green-eyed human you were asking about is, but the half-elf you were looking for sounds a lot like Storm. If you saw my dragonmark through your peephole, then you saw Storm. Is he the one you’re looking for?”

Natrac watched her for a moment, suspicion and mistrust pooling in his belly, then nodded slowly.

Benti’s face tightened. “I know he’s from House Lyrandar-I would have known even without his joke of an alias-but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Who is he?”

She was holding something back, he knew. Biish hadn’t seemed to care who Lord Storm really was, and Natrac had to admit to himself that if someone using an alias had come to him with enough gold while he’d been in Biish’s position, he wouldn’t have cared either. And Biish wouldn’t be happy if he discovered his captive had escaped, but Benti was still willing to risk it to find out Vennet’s identity. Natrac ground his teeth together, then thrust his jaw forward. “Why do you want to know?” he asked.

Benti looked into his eyes, her face utterly expressionless, then turned away. The floor seemed to fall out from under Natrac as she walked to the door of the outer chamber.

“No!” he shouted and flung himself at the cell door, clutching at the bars of the window. “Benti! Benti, come back! I’ll tell you. Let me out! I need to get out!”

But the chamber door closed behind her and didn’t open again.

CHAPTER 10

Dandra had hoped to go to Nevchaned’s and examine Erimelk early in the morning-as early as was polite and possibly even earlier. Unfortunately, by the time Singe and Ashi had returned and relayed the tale of their brush with Mithas d’Deneith and their discovery of Natrac’s past, the night was almost over. They’d decided to sleep for just a little while, to give Natrac a little longer to come back from his mysterious errands, before going to Nevchaned’s house.

A little while had turned into a long while. The sun stood at noon, blazing directly over Sharn’s heart. The new day was as bright as the previous day had been dark. Natrac had still not returned.

“Should we look for him?” Ashi asked.

Dandra shook her head. “Where would we start?”

“He could be in trouble.”

“We’re in trouble too,” said Singe. “Natrac will have to wait.” He put away his spellshard-a fist-sized dragonshard imprinted with the arcane texts of his magic-and stood up. “I’m ready.”

The time he took with the spellshard when she wanted to be gone rubbed at Dandra, but the wizard argued for the necessity of studying more sleeping spells in case they needed them against Dah’mir’s herons. Dandra hoped they wouldn’t need the spells. She knew her hope was probably misplaced. Before they left the apartment, she slid her short spear into the harness across her back.

The people in the streets of Fan Adar seemed no less on edge in the bright light of early afternoon than they had in the gloom of evening or the dark of night. Now that she knew what was happening, Dandra could feel the way that they hung back, not just from strangers but out of wariness born by the unpredictable violence of the killing song. Dandra couldn’t blame them. Had the council of elders done the right thing by concealing the killing song? Would knowing that a song lay behind the madness and murders in the community ease Fan Adar’s fears or just make them worse?

She, Singe, and Ashi walked with their heads raised, scanning the skies and high places for the black herons. Nevchaned did good business with the other inhabitants of Overlook district, and his home and shop were just beyond the limits of Fan Adar. Once they were beyond the Adaran neighborhood, the herons might be less of a concern, but until then, they had to be careful. Maybe Dah’mir wasn’t watching for them in particular, but there was no point in taking chances. Dandra was so focused on keeping her eyes open for the birds that she didn’t see Hanamelk until he was right in front of her.

“Dandra?” he said.

The soft word startled her as much as a shout, and she stumbled. Singe and Ashi closed around her, but she gestured them to ease as she recognized the lean, scholarly elder. “What are you doing here, Hanamelk?” she asked.

“I was on my way to look for you. I’ve been waiting with Nevchaned. We expected you earlier.”

If he noticed her embarrassed blush, he said nothing. Instead, he looked at Ashi and Singe, recognizing them from the memories she had shared through kesh. Dandra introduced them properly. The elder’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“Natrac isn’t with you?”

“He’s making inquiries of his own,” Singe said. He still had one eye on the skies. “If we’re going to talk, we should find somewhere covered.”

Hanamelk smiled. “Are you worried about Dah’mir’s herons? We’ve found a solution to them.”

“What kind of solution?” asked Dandra. “Selkatari didn’t convince the elders to kill them all, did she?”

“She came up with a more clever solution.” Hanamelk looked into the distance and pointed. “Look there. Do you see on that tower with the green windows?”

Dandra looked and picked out the ragged form of a heron just coming to perch on a ledge. It had barely settled, however, before it rose again with a screech and flurry of greasy feathers. Down on the street, a cheer went up from a group of children, and they ran to follow the harried bird.

“The children of Fan Adar,” Hanamelk said, “have a new game today. We should still be cautious, but we don’t need to be as afraid of being watched.”

He led them onward. “The other elders have also been busy. I went to the shrine of il-Yannah this morning.” He nodded toward a tall, elegant tower that rose up above the buildings a few blocks away. “The shrine is tended by my mentor, the seer Havakhad. He bends his thoughts toward seeking out Dah’mir.”

“Has he had any luck?” asked Dandra.

“Not yet, but he seems confident.” A wary smile grew on Hanamelk’s lips. “I believe his words were ‘Every dragon in Sharn believes he moves unseen.’”

Ashi flinched. “There are other dragons in Sharn?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Singe said. “It’s a big city. Don’t worry, Ashi. Dah’mir probably doesn’t want any other dragons finding out what he’s up to either.”

They put Fan Adar behind them. With the celebrations of Thronehold imminent, there was a festive mood in the other streets of Overlook. The banners and flags that had been on display the day before had been bolstered with reinforcements. Tavern doors and windows stood wide. The cries of peddlers and the songs of minstrels filled the air. If any herons were watching the district beyond Fan Adar, they would have been hard pressed to follow anyone in the swirl of crowds. Singe leaned closer to Hanamelk and said over the noise, “Do you know what the plans are for the celebration?”

The elder shrugged. “It hasn’t been of much concern to me. I’ve heard that the Lord Mayor intends to make them extravagant. There have been rumors that the elves of House Phiarlan and the gnomes of Zilargo are sponsoring a display of illusion over the city tonight. That will probably attract a lot of attention elsewhere.”

“But not in Fan Adar?” Dandra asked. “I’d think people would welcome the diversion.”

“Thronehold is a celebration of other people’s peace,” said Hanamelk. “We still fight a war.”

The street they followed gave onto a broad square at the edge of one great tower. Nevchaned’s home lay across the square, along an open side that offered a spectacular view of the heart of Sharn. In the towns and cities that Dandra had visited with Singe and Geth-Bull Hollow, Yrlag, Zarash’ak, and Vralkek-she’d found that the usual arrangement among merchants and craftsmen was to operate their business on the ground floor of a shop and dwell in rooms above. As was often the case, though, things were sometimes done differently in Sharn, and she felt a guilty pleasure in watching Ashi stare in confusion as they approached the small, single-story buildings that lined the edge of the square like bumps on the rim of a goblet. Beyond them was nothing but sky and the long plumes of smoke that streamed from a couple of the shops. It was a long stone’s throw to the next tower.

Dandra couldn’t hold back a laugh. “Look here, Ashi.” She drew her to the low wall, a barrier along the open edge of the courtyard, that ran between Nevchaned’s shop and the next building and leaned over.

The small shops were the roofs of tall, narrow buttress-towers that ran like veins up the side of the greater tower. Windows pierced the stone and doors opened onto another street a good dozen stories below. In other cities, a craftsman lived above his shop; in Sharn, it was entirely possible to live below it. Ashi gave a curse of amazement and stepped back. Dandra laughed again and turned to tug on the rope that hung beside Nevchaned’s door.

Somewhere inside the building, a chime rang. The door opened before the sound had even begun to fade, and Nevchaned gestured them inside. The shop was warm and smelled of hot metal. Examples of Nevchaned’s craft lined the walls-from spears and swords to daggers and arrows, to the more domestic metalwork of kitchen knives. “You weren’t seen?” Nevchaned asked as he closed the door behind them.

“I don’t think we were,” said Hanamelk. “The children are keeping the herons off balance.”

Nevchaned looked relieved. He nodded to Dandra. “Kuchta. Hanamelk found you?”

“Kuchtoa. We found each other. I’m sorry we’re late.” She introduced the others to Nevchaned, and the elder nodded respectfully to each of them, then went to one of the shop’s narrow windows and turned a sign from open to closed.

“We won’t be disturbed,” he said. “Come with me. Erimelk is”-his face wrinkled in distaste-“restrained in a storeroom below.”

“You don’t like restraining him?” Singe asked as Nevchaned led them to a staircase that descended through the floor to the living levels below. Nevchaned gave him a sideways glance.

“I know what is necessary,” he said. “Even if I don’t like it. Dandra said you were a veteran of the Last War?” Singe nodded and the old man sighed. “Then you’ve seen war torn-men and women who saw and did such things that although their bodies might have been whole, their minds and souls were wounded.”

Singe’s face wrinkled. “I’ve known war torn.”

“As have I. I learned my trade with Breland’s armies, sharpening their swords. A smith seldom sees battle directly, but I saw the aftermath of too many.” Nevchaned paused before a door at the bottom of the stairs. “Tell me, would you lock up someone who was war torn?”

“If they were violent,” Singe said. “House Deneith had some experience in dealing with mercenaries who’d become war torn. It’s better to try and bring them back into the unit-or the community. Often that’s the healing they need.”

“I think that’s what the victims of the killing song need as well. They’ve seen something in the killing song that breaks them.” He looked meaningfully at Hanamelk.

“The other elders don’t share this opinion?” Dandra asked.

“No,” Hanamelk answered.

Nevchaned shook his head. “Erimelk was my friend,” he said. “I’ve seen the war torn recover given time and care. I’ve never seen them recover when they’re shut in prisons.”

He pushed the door open. The apartment beyond, striped by the afternoon light that fell through the windows, was simple but clean. The air, however, was tainted by the sound of a muffled voice. At first, Dandra thought it was someone screaming, but then she realized it was someone singing hoarsely. It was wordless and largely tuneless, but definitely singing.

“We gag him,” Nevchaned said, “but he sings anyway.”

“Light of il-Yannah.” Dandra wanted to stick her fingers in her ears, not that it would have helped. The song seemed to penetrate right through her skull, bypassing her ears to take up residency in her head. Careful concentration dispersed the feeling. “How can you live with it? How can the other elders who hide the fallen kalashtar live with it?”

“Each new victim seems to act a bit differently, though there have been patterns,” said Hanamelk. “Recent victims fell quickly, but seemed to retain a certain cunning. Erimelk hid himself from us for days until you appeared. Earlier victims fell slowly, as if the song took time to have an effect, but when they became violent, they were mindless. The first to fall to the song that we knew of, Makvakri, was moody and sang quietly for a few days before she turned violent. Ultimately, she killed herself before we could intervene.”

“The first that you knew of?” Singe asked.

“We know of seven victims, but three kalashtar have been missing since nearly the same time that the song began.” Hanamelk folded his hands. “We think that they suffered a fate similar to Makvakri and took their own lives, although there was no sign of her slower degradation.”

Singe pressed his lips together. “If there is someone or something behind the killing song, it almost seems like they’ve been tuning the song like an instrument, trying to find the right pitch.”

“That’s an unpleasant way of putting it.”

“Veterans have a way of facing the unpleasant, Hanamelk,” Nevchaned said. “This way.”

The song grew louder as Nevchaned ushered them along a short corridor toward another set of stairs. Before they reached the stairs, however, another door opened along the corridor, and Moon stuck his head out. The young kalashtar was still dressed in the clothes he had worn the previous night, including the Brelish blue vest. His eyes looked red, as if he had just woken up. Maybe he had-Dandra caught a glimpse of displeasure in Nevchaned’s face. Moon’s gaze darted between them all, then settled on her. For a moment, she thought she saw something flash in his eyes. Heat spread across her cheeks, and she looked away.

The young man’s red eyes had been soft with adoration. Il-Yannah, Dandra thought incredulously, he’s in love with me? She tried to remember saying or doing anything at the Gathering Light that might have encouraged him. Maybe he’d liked the way she handled the elders or the un-kalashtar manner of her behavior. Either way, there was something distinctly odd in the way he’d stared. She almost felt a chill-not a bad chill, but a shiver of familiarity.

Moon looked like he was on the edge of speaking, but Nevchaned’s displeasure reached his tongue first. “When did you come in? I thought you were still out.”

“I got in late.” Moon’s voice was thick and slightly slurred. In spite of herself, Dandra glanced up. The softness had gone out of Moon’s eyes, replaced by a hardness as he looked back at his father. It was unusual for a kalashtar-even one so rebellious as Moon-to indulge in drink. Moon seemed so hostile that he reminded Dandra more of a young human, or even of Diad, Natrac’s half-orc son by Bava in Zarash’ak.

Nevchaned’s face tightened. “Wash and take yourself out again. You shouldn’t be here now.”

“Why?”

Dandra decided to interrupt the argument before it grew. Erimelk was close, and she wanted to examine him before his coarse chant of the killing song got on her nerves. “Because we’re going to try something that could be dangerous,” she said. She smiled at Moon. If he had somehow developed feelings for her, she wouldn’t hesitate to use them. “Go. There’s nothing for you to see here. Maybe we can talk later?”

Somewhat to her astonishment, the appeal worked. Moon looked at her, then dropped his eyes, folded his hands together and bent his head over them in a surprisingly traditional gesture. “Patan yannah.”

He stepped back into his room. Nevchaned shook his head and continued down the stairs. “You’d think that he was the first kalashtar to wear the blue of Breland,” he said.

“There aren’t many of you,” said Hanamelk. “And he’s both of the lineage of Chaned and your son. Ranhana thayava, Nevchaned.”

As the two kalashtar spoke, Ashi nudged Dandra. “I think Moon likes you.”

Dandra wrinkled her nose. “You noticed?”

“She wasn’t the only one,” Singe said, glancing back from ahead of her. “I saw-and I think Moon saw that I saw. Did you see the look that he gave me?” Dandra shook her head and Singe chuckled. “Like he was trying to burn stone. He’s jealous.”

Dandra muttered a curse under her breath. Ashi laughed.

Thoughts of Moon vanished as they stepped into the lower passage, an undecorated corridor with a few doors leading off of it. One of them had been barred with an iron rod. Erimelk’s muffled song came from behind it. Nevchaned slid the bar aside, then looked to Hanamelk and to Dandra. Hanamelk nodded. Dandra’s gut felt tight but she said, “Let me see him.”

Nevchaned opened the door. Dandra looked inside. The assortment of domestic goods that had once crowded the storeroom had been pushed to one side, making way for a thin sleeping pallet. Erimelk crouched on the pallet with his arms twisted behind his back and shackled to a ring driven into the wall. Bright metal still showed on the ring and Erimelk’s chains where Nevchaned’s hammer had scarred them.

Although Erimelk had been washed and his clothes changed since she’d seen him the day before, he somehow looked even worse than he had then. He was trembling, more from exhaustion, Dandra guessed, than fear or manic energy. He’d soiled himself, and the stench in the room was thick. Eyes that had been wild were dull, focused on something only he could see. The gag of twisted cloth that circled his jaw pulled his lips back in a hideous smile. It was soaked with saliva and where it had rubbed the corners of his mouth raw with blood. He still sang, the nonsense words of the killing song falling from his tongue in a broken cascade. “Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi-”

Nevchaned looked away from his friend with helpless anger written on his face.

“Poor bastard,” muttered Singe. A memory-one of Tetkashtai’s memories-came to Dandra of a service the scribe had once done for her creator, an illuminated page decorated with beautiful jewel-toned inks. Rage at Dah’mir or whoever had inflicted the killing song on Nevchaned and the other kalashtar of Sharn filled her.

“Is he still violent?” she asked.

“When he notices us, he probably will be,” said Hanamelk. “The chains are short, though.”

“I’m not afraid of him.” Dandra raised her chin and stepped into the room.

There was no change in Erimelk’s expression or in the tone of his song. Dandra knelt cautiously at the foot of the pallet and spoke his name. “Erimelk?” He didn’t respond. She probably would have been more surprised if he had. Dandra drew a breath, reached into herself, and pushed her mind toward his in the link of kesh.

It was like sinking into thick cream. There was no resistance, and the world vanished around her-leaving her utterly surrounded by the killing song. The cascading sounds were all that she could hear and somehow, all that she could see. It was so sudden, she almost screamed.

She bit back her fear. She could escape this if she needed to. These weren’t her thoughts. The killing song wasn’t in her, it was in Erimelk. She pushed deeper. Just as it had been in the memories Shelsatori had shared with her, the song was inhumanly pure and maddeningly intricate, building toward dark urges of violence. Dandra tried calling Erimelk’s name again, this time within the confines of his mind. Erimelk?

She might has well have shouted in the middle of a thunder storm. There was no response-at least not from Erimelk.

Like lightning splitting a storm, images burst out of the song along with a wave of violent hatred. Visions of her and of Singe, the targets toward which Erimelk had been directed. To Dandra’s surprise, though, there were also fragments of recent memories, something she hadn’t seen in what Shelsatori had shown her. Erimelk’s joy at spotting his targets. Blissful release as he attacked. A terrible anger at his failure-

Buffeted by the song, Dandra snatched at the last fragment and examined it more closely. There was something odd about it. Anger-but not the disappointment or anguish she would have expected from Erimelk’s tormented mind.

The shattered memory was his and yet not his, much as the memories she had inherited from Tetkashtai were hers and yet not hers. If Dandra hadn’t known that Erimelk had not possessed a psicrystal, she would have guessed that to be the source of the memory.

But he hadn’t possessed a psicrystal. Someone or something else had ridden with him.

Was it Dah’mir? Dandra braced herself and reached out into the roaring, cascade of the song. She let it wash over her and listened-listened hard-for a voice that had become too horribly familiar to her. There was a particular sensation that accompanied Dah’mir’s dominating presence, a lingering cold that suffocated thought. She’d felt it each time she’d confronted the dragon. She’d felt in Tzaryan Keep, moments before Tzaryan Rrac had led them into Dah’mir’s ambush. She’d felt it in the minds of the sailors on Lighting on Water, when Dah’mir’s power-weaker in humans, but still strong enough to command immediate obedience-had kept them trapped aboard the ship in Zarash’ak’s harbor.

She didn’t feel it in the killing song. There was something there, something elusively familiar, but it wasn’t Dah’mir.

The realization pierced her with a numbing fear. She pulled herself back from the song and slid along the link of kesh to her own body like someone following a rope in darkness. As if it had finally realized an intruder had entered its domain, the song rose and ripped at her, crystal tones tearing into her mental self. Something turned sluggishly within the storm, and Dandra felt a fleeting moment of terrible exaltation brush her mind. You!

She burst out of the kesh and fell back into herself, but the scream followed her. Something snapped across her jaw, and she tumbled backward, stunned. She caught a quick glimpse of Erimelk stretched out on his sleeping pallet, chains and arms stretched tight as he kicked at her and screamed around his gag, then hands seized her and pulled her clear. Voices came back to her, cutting through Erimelk’s shrieks in her ears and the echoes of the killing song in her mind. “I thought you said the chains were short!”

“They are short!”

“Dandra? Dandra!”

Ashi, Nevchaned, and Singe. She blinked and glanced up at them. Ashi had her sword out and looked ready to kill. Nevchaned and Hanamelk looked startled. Singe just looked concerned, though relief passed over his face when he saw her eyes focus on him. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.” She sat up. Her jaw ached where Erimelk had kicked her. The mad kalashtar was still screaming and spitting, though at least he was howling curses instead of the killing song. One of his arms bent at a strange angle. He’d dislocated his shoulder in his struggles. There was no sign of the lassitude that had held him before. She was glad he was still chained. “How long was I in kesh?”

“Long enough that we were starting to worry,” Singe said. “What happened? One moment Erimelk was quiet, the next he was doing everything he could to reach you.”

“I was inside him too long, or maybe I pushed too deep.” She looked to Hanamelk and Nevchaned. “It’s not Dah’mir. I know his touch and this isn’t it. Your guess was right-something else is causing the song.”

Hanamelk’s lips pressed together. “I’d rather I’d been wrong.”

“Well, you’re not.” With Singe’s help, Dandra climbed to her feet. “What do we do now?”

Somewhere above, the chime of Nevchaned’s shop door rang. Nevchaned ignored it. “We’re going to have to go back to the council of elders,” he said. “This is going to frighten some of them-they hoped we’d found all of our answers.”

“I hoped we’d found all our answers,” Dandra said. “Which do you think the elders will feel more threatened by, the killing song or Dah’mir?”

Nevchaned and Hanamelk glanced at each other. “The killing song,” Hanamelk answered. “They know it’s a threat. They see it in front of them. It may be infecting another kalashtar right now. But Dah’mir …” He shook his head. “You’ve put a compelling case before us, Dandra, but we don’t know anything yet. Maybe Havakhad and the seers will find something. For now, there’s no immediate danger. Dah’mir hasn’t moved against us yet. He may not move against us for weeks or months.”

“You can’t wait until he strikes!” said Singe. The wizard’s angry words were partly drowned out by Erimelk’s screams and by a new series of rapid, insistent chimes from above. Nevchaned’s face flushed dark. He reached out and jerked the door of the storeroom shut, dampening one source of noise.

“We know!” he said. “But if we have to choose between something that threatens our community now and something that may threaten us weeks from now, we have to deal with the urgent threat.”

“You’ve warned us. We’ll be ready,” Hanamelk added. “But what is there we can do until we know more? We may seem like a large community, but we’re not. We don’t have the resources to fight two dangers we only barely understand.”

“You have us,” Ashi said. “Help us to find Dah’mir and-”

She didn’t finish. The chimes from the shop ended and replaced by a loud impact and the sound of splintering. Nevchaned’s eyes went wide. “My shop!”

Hanamelk’s face slackened for a moment, colors danced in the depths of his eyes, and he appeared to look into the distance. “There are humans at your door,” he said. “Five men. They’re trying to break in-” There was another crash. Hanamelk blinked and corrected himself. “They’re in.”

“What?” Nevchaned sprinted for the stairs.

“Wait!” Hanamelk called after him, but the old man didn’t stop. Hanamelk turned to Singe. “He’s not going to be able to stop them.”

Singe glanced at Dandra. She nodded to him. He and Hanamelk raced after Nevchaned. Ashi’s eyes followed them longingly. She still had her sword drawn. “Should we go?” she asked.

Dandra leaned against a wall. Her head still spun slightly from Erimelk’s kick. “Just a moment-”

“No, don’t go!” Shadows moved on the stairs. Moon stepped down into the corridor. It seemed he hadn’t followed either her request or his father’s orders-he hadn’t washed and he was still in the house. He looked unsteady or nervous, and when he met Dandra’s eyes, she once again saw that same soft love in them.

This time, however, it was mixed with a strange determination. She frowned in concern. “Why not?”

“There’s something I need to tell you-” The young man seemed to brace himself, then added “-Dandra.” He flinched as she stood up straight and Ashi tensed, and continued in a rush. “Last night at the Gathering Light, I eavesdropped on what you told the elders. I know what you told them-”

She looked at him. “I spoke to them through kesh.”

He blushed. “When there are so many people participating in kesh, it’s easy for one more to join. I’m sorry. But I heard what you told them. About Dah’mir. About his herons. I heard what you were just talking about now too. I can help-”

There was a shout from above as Nevchaned raised his voice in challenge to whoever had invaded his home. Ashi’s head snapped up like a dog scenting prey.

“Moon, we have to help your father!” Dandra said. “Tell us later!”

“No!” the young kalashtar blurted. “You have to listen now! I’ve seen the herons in another part of the city. I know where you can find Dah’mir!”

For an old man, Nevchaned could move fast. Singe supposed that he would move quickly too, if someone were breaking into his home and shop.

He caught up to the smith and grabbed his arm before he could race up the stairs to his shop. A hand over Nevchaned’s mouth and a hard look silenced him before he could say anything. Singe pulled him back from the door to the stairs, pushing him into Hanamelk’s hands, then stepped up to the doorway himself and listened. He could hear the men moving around, but it didn’t sound like they were trying to steal anything. The sounds of the square outside the shop were muffled. They must have closed the broken door behind themselves. The wizard frowned. Broad daylight-who would be so bold and why?

Floorboards creaked at the head of the stairs and someone finally spoke. “Stairs,” growled a soft voice. “Dol Dorn’s mighty fist, what’s that screaming?”

The response that drifted down the stairs answered Singe’s question and left him cold at the same time. “Forget the screaming and go down,” said Mithas d’Deneith. “I can feel the mark. She’s close!”

CHAPTER 11

Singe’s heart seemed to stop. He stepped back, his hand darting to his sword. He felt a touch on his shoulder-Nevchaned-at the same moment that he felt a touch against his mind. He opened his thoughts to the elder and felt Hanamelk through the kesh as well.

Nevchaned’s mental voice was stronger than his speaking voice, and Singe could imagine that he must have commanded impressive respect in his younger days. What’s going on? he asked.

House Deneith, Singe said. They’re looking for Ashi.

Even communicated at the speed of thought, the whole story would have taken time they didn’t have. How, he wondered, had Mithas managed to find them? He didn’t doubt that the sorcerer was using some kind of divination magic, but he shouldn’t have been able to locate them all the way across the city. Singe still couldn’t believe that he would try to draw on the resources of Deneith-he’d want to keep Ashi’s secret to himself.

Ashi’s secret … With a sinking heart, Singe remembered Ashi’s cry of glee during their escape: “I like Deathsgate much better than Overlook!” Someone had probably sold the memory of that shout to Mithas. As much as Singe disliked the man, he had to admit that he wasn’t stupid.

Nevchaned didn’t ask any further questions though. There’s a back door, he said. Take it and run. An image flickered into Singe’s head of the buttress-towers, one of them with Nevchaned’s shop at its peak, that hugged the side of the greater tower. More images followed in a rush: a door on the lower level of the apartment, a long and twisting flight of stairs past other apartments, an exit onto a lower street well away from Mithas and danger. Singe blinked at Nevchaned.

The elder scowled. Go! We’re not helpless!

Their leader is a sorcerer.

We have powers of our own, said Hanamelk. A seer can confuse as well as clarify. Go the Gathering Light. You’ll find refuge there if you need it.

Booted feet were already treading softly down the stairs. Be careful, Singe told the elders and dashed away. He had barely left them behind when he heard Nevchaned raise his voice in a loud demand. “What are you doing in my home?”

He almost wanted to stay and watch the two elders stand up to Mithas-he could imagine the frustrated look on Mithas’s face-but escape was a better alternative to fighting. Hanamelk had said five men, and Singe guessed that Mithas had brought four Blademarks mercenaries with him. He, Dandra, and Ashi could have taken the mercenaries, but he wouldn’t have put it past Mithas to prepare some special magic to use against them. And they couldn’t afford to fall to Mithas.

He ran down the stairs to the lower level as softly as he could, blessing Erimelk’s screaming for the cover that it gave him. “Ashi! Dandra!” he hissed. “We need to-”

He slid to a stop at the sight of Moon standing before the two women. Both Ashi and Dandra looked startled by something-and Singe knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t him. “What’s going on?”

Moon turned and looked at him with such hatred that Singe wondered what he’d interrupted. “Moon says he knows where Dah’mir is,” Dandra said.

“Twelve bloody moons.” The door that Nevchaned had shown him lay at the end of the corridor. Could they spare an instant? Nevchaned and Hanamelk both had their voices raised. Singe clenched his teeth. “Where?”

A nasty cunning entered the young kalashtar’s expression. “Take me with you,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

Dandra’s eyebrows rose, and she glanced at Singe. Their spare instant was over-on the floor above, Mithas shouted down Nevchaned. “Get these old fools out of my way and find me that woman!”

The elders’ voices just grew sharper. Ashi drew a sharp breath. “Is that Mithas?”

“Yes. Nevchaned and Hanamelk are buying us time. We’re getting out of here.” Singe pushed past them all and went to the back door. Two stout bolts held it closed. He pulled them back and wrenched the door open. “Moon, you’re coming with us for now at least!”

He didn’t bother to look at Moon’s expression. Moon could have been staring holes in his back for all he cared. On the other side of the door, stairs dropped down into a well of flights and landings lit by everbright lanterns. He glanced over the rail. The bottom of the stairwell was a long way down. He clenched his teeth and prayed that no one would be coming up the other way, then waved the others through the door. “Come on! Hurry!”

Ashi passed him without a second glance, sheathing her sword as she moved. Dandra looked at him in a little surprise. “How did he find-?”

“I’ll explain later.”

Moon was the last through and looked at Singe with loathing. The wizard resisted the urge to punch the love-drunk youth, and closed the door behind himself. Maybe Mithas’s men wouldn’t think to check the door.

That hope lasted no longer than two turns down the stairs as the echoes of their racing boots filled the stairwell. The landings between the flights of stairs were lined with the doors of other apartments in the tower and people were beginning to open their doors to see what was happening outside. Singe had to dodge around a portly old dwarf as he stepped out from his apartment. Fortunately, the old man was faster than he looked, and he got back inside in time to avoid Ashi. Curses and shouts followed them. Periodic glances over the rail gave Singe a rough idea of their progress down the height of the tower. A third of the way down. Halfway-

Exclamations from high above joined the curses of the disturbed inhabitants. Mithas and his men had discovered their quarry’s escape. Singe, teeth bared against the exertion of running, allowed himself a taut smile. There was no way Mithas could catch them on the stairs. They’d be out of the tower and away onto the street before the sorcerer was even close. Maybe Mithas had realized that too. Or maybe he thought his tracking magic could find them again-Singe hoped that Hanamelk’s comment about confusing things was true. In any case, no footsteps followed them, and they approached the last few flights of stairs, Singe slowed. “We’re away,” he said. “They’re not chasing us.”

Dandra glared up at him. “They’re not chasing us because this is Sharn! Keep running!”

She didn’t slow-Singe increased his pace to keep up with her. They burst out of the doors of the tower and onto the street a few moments later. Heads turned briefly to stare at them. Singe looked at Dandra with curiosity, but the kalashtar had her face turned up toward the sky. He followed her gaze, but couldn’t tell what she was looking for. Dah’mir’s herons?

Then five forms launched themselves off the courtyard-roof of the great tower overhead. The energy that crackled around the soarsleds under their feet was dim in the afternoon sunlight, but the silver and blue of their Blademarks uniform jackets was bright. Soaring like birds, the figures arced out from the tower wall, then curved back and dived toward the street.

The crowd on the street scattered with cries of alarm. “Deneith claims its own!” screamed Mithas as he plunged down from above. “Stop the kalashtar first!”

The sorcerer hadn’t chased them through the tower because he’d known they’d come out the bottom-and because this was Sharn, he had a faster way to intercept them. Singe didn’t waste energy cursing. Options flashed through his head instead. They were all but alone on the rapidly clearing street, an easy target. Mounted on the soarsleds, the mercenaries could easily run them down if they tried to flee-the scattered crowd offered no concealment and the nearest cover was far along the street. If they ducked back into the tower, they’d be trapped. Mithas would just send men in from top and bottom to catch them in between. There was only one thing he could see to do, but at least it made the anger he felt toward Mithas burn with a joyful heat.

“Take them down!” he shouted. He thrust a hand toward the diving mercenaries and called out the words of a spell. A bolt of orange flame erupted from the air, streaking the sky with fire as it leaped for the men. Singe caught a glimpse of eyes that were suddenly wide and faces that were suddenly pale. The soarsleds curved away from one another, and the flame flashed through in empty space.

Exactly as he’d intended. Their charge broken, the mercenaries circled, trying to reorient themselves. “Scatter!” ordered Singe.

Dandra broke to the left, Ashi to the right. Singe stuck with Ashi, grabbing her hand as she reached to draw her sword once more. “No! No weapons-kill them and we’ll have the city guard after us.”

“Rond betch, what am I supposed to do then?” Above the scarf over her face, her eyes widened. “Moon!”

Singe whirled. The kalashtar still stood frozen in front of the tower doors. In the air overhead, one of the mercenaries had brought his soarsled to a halt. He had a shortbow in his hands, an arrow nocked and aimed at Moon. The head of the arrow was strangely blunt, but it shimmered with a strange amber energy that raised a chill on the back of Singe’s neck. He focused his will on the man, crooked his fingers, and hissed the words of the sleeping spell.

The man blinked, but nothing more. Singe bit back a curse-this was why he preferred fire spells! — as the mercenary pulled back his bowstring.

Ashi was quicker. Someone had abandoned a mesh shopping bag containing the still wet body of a good big fish on the street as they fled the mercenary attack. The hunter snatched it up, spun around twice, then let the bag fly. It hurtled through the air and struck the mercenary, slapping him completely off the soarsled. His arrow snapped out of the bow to strike the wall of the tower over Moon’s head. A spray of amber light burst from it, coating a broad patch of the wall in a honey-like sheen. The mercenary hit the ground with a hard thump and lay still. His soarsled-and the fish-tumbled down beside him. Mithas let out an angry shout.

Moon didn’t even move. There was a weird, hungry look in his eyes. Singe felt goosebumps rise on his arms and followed his gaze.

One of the other mercenaries, also armed with a bow and the shimmering arrows, had gone after Dandra, but she had simply stepped up onto the air. Gliding above the ground, supported by her power, she twisted and turned with matchless speed and grace. In order to have even a chance at hitting her, the man had to keep his soarsled in constant motion.

Moon’s eyes followed Dandra’s every move with a frightening intensity.

The sweep of a shadow overhead forced Singe’s attention back to Mithas and the remaining two mercenaries. They circled him and Ashi like vultures. Both held swords rather than bows and seemed reluctant to land and use them, but Mithas held the slim stick of a magic wand in his fingers. He watched Ashi in a way that reminded Geth of a farmer inspecting prime livestock.

“Surrender!” he called down.

Ashi spat a few words in the tongue of the Bonetree clan. Mithas may not have understood the words, but he clearly understood the tone. His face twisted into a savage grin, and he flicked the wand at Singe.

The wizard tried to throw himself aside, but dodging magic wasn’t quite the same as diving away from an arrow. The spell that leaped from the wand didn’t produce a tell-tale glowing ray, but instead seemed to bend the sunlight in the air around itself. For something with no apparent substance, however, the lancing beam carried a powerful punch. It caught him on the side, and his dodge turned into tumble. He ended up on his belly beside the fallen mercenary, staring across the filthy stones of the street as pain radiated through his side-it felt like he had taken a blow deep into his soft tissues.

His fall gave openings to Ashi and Dandra, though. He watched in a daze as Ashi sprinted forward and jumped up, grabbing for the edge of a soarsled that had drifted too low. Energy crackled around the hunter’s fingers, and the disc tilted wildly, but the mercenary on the sled managed to keep his footing, though his sword dropped to the street with a ringing crash. As Mithas whirled to flick his wand, Ashi gave a mighty twist and kick, pulling herself up onto the sled. The invisible bolt bent the light where her feet had been. Heedless of the disc’s wild rocking, Ashi grappled with the mercenary.

Dandra put on a burst of speed and darted directly underneath the soarsled of the mercenary who had been stalking her. The mercenary’s head twisted as he tried to follow her, and when she stopped, he brought his soarsled skimming around in a quick movement, bow already drawn and aimed. Dandra’s eyes narrowed in concentration. The air between her and the mercenary rippled as she spun out the force that kalashtar called vayhatana-and the man jerked to a stop, captured in midair by the power of her mind.

His soarsled, however, didn’t stop. Momentum carried it away from his feet, the crackling energy faded, and the disc arced down to smash into the street below. The man’s eyes went wide. He stared at the empty air under his feet, then at Dandra, and in an instant his bow joined the falling soarsled as he raised open hands in surrender.

The remaining mercenary sent his sled darting for his suspended comrade. Dandra swung her captive-who screamed like a girl-at him, but the movement was sluggish and more a threat than anything else.

Mithas’s wand wavered between Ashi and Dandra. Both were easy targets.

Singe forced himself up. The bow of the first mercenary Ashi had knocked down lay beside him with blunt, amber-tipped arrows scattered all around. The wizard grabbed for the bow, laid an arrow across it, and pulled the string back. “Mithas!” he shouted. The sorcerer turned. Singe loosed the arrow and grabbed for another.

The shot was wild, of course, but he would have been happy if the arrow had gone anywhere near the man. All he needed was a moment’s distraction for the chance to aim the second arrow more carefully. His first arrow, though, found a target after all.

It struck square in the back of the mercenary struggling with Ashi. The man stiffened as honey-colored light wrapped around him, freezing him in place-and the disc dropped for the ground with Ashi caught in the paralyzed man’s arms. Dandra gasped, her face tightened, and vayhatana rippled again, slowing the soarsled’s fall.

But Mithas flicked his wand and air bent like a counterstroke to the ripples of vayhatana. The beam struck Dandra in the belly, flinging her backward as everyone she had held in the air dropped to the ground. Singe gasped-and it was utterly swallowed by a heart-rending shriek from Moon. Mithas’s wand, already aimed for Singe, rose and flicked toward the terrible cry, but the sorcerer was too slow. Silver-white light exploded onto the street, overwhelming the afternoon light. Mithas flung up an arm to shield his eyes-and Singe watched in amazement as the fabric of his sleeve fell to shreds. Spots of blood burst across the flesh of his arm, across his chest, across his face. Red-soaked rags were all that remained of his clothes. He screamed in pain, and Singe saw his eyes blaze with rage. He thrust out his hand in an arcane gesture, abandoning wand for spell.

The second arrow still lay across Singe’s bow. He lifted the weapon almost without thinking and loosed the arrow.

The expression of surprise on Mithas’s blood-streaked face was caught behind the honey light that surrounded him. His soarsled stayed aloft, and he bobbed in the air like an outraged amber statue.

The last mercenary, still uninjured, took one look around and shot up and away into the sky.

Singe dropped the bow and dragged himself to his feet, his side aching. Ashi, her face twisted in pain, was extricating herself from the embrace of the paralyzed mercenary. The mercenary Dandra had snared with vayhatana and the mercenary Ashi had felled with a fish were groaning and stirring feebly. Dandra was sitting up, rocking slowly as she clutched at her belly. Singe met her gaze, and they both looked up at Mithas. The wounds that the sorcerer had suffered reminded Singe of what Erimelk had done to him, only far worse and more extensive. He turned to look at Moon.

The young kalashtar stood rigid, his body trembling and his skin pale, as if the energy he had put into the psionic attack had left him with barely enough strength to stand. Singe would have gone to him and offered him support, but he wasn’t certain that he wanted to. He’d seen terrible magics unleashed during the Last War. He’d killed people with his fiery spells. He would gladly have killed Mithas. Somehow, though, seeing such a bloody power projected from Moon’s young body left him deeply shocked.

As if he could sense that shock, Moon focused on Singe and gave him a strange smile of grim triumph. The smile of a rival who had proven himself.

Then the smile was gone, and Singe had to wonder if he’d even seen it. Moon shook himself, strength seeming to flow back into his limbs, and he stepped past Singe to offer his hand to Dandra. “We should go. The Watch will come.”

Dandra looked stunned too, but she allowed Moon to help her up. Ashi came to Singe’s side. The struggle had wrenched her scarf askew, and she was tucking it back into place, though Singe still caught a glimpse of a long, bloody scrape across her jaw. “What happened?” she asked. “I saw a flash of light, then Mithas just started to bleed. Was that Moon? Is he that powerful?”

“I wouldn’t have thought he was.” Singe ground his teeth together and forced himself to look around the street. The crowds were creeping back now that the violence was over, eyes wide with fear and curiosity. A number of less than scrupulous types were looking greedily at the magical arrows that the battle had left scattered about. Singe thought the groaning mercenaries would probably recover quickly enough to take care of themselves, though it was too bad that Mithas hovered out of reach. The sorcerer’s vengeful gaze seemed fixed on him. Singe put his back to him and went to Dandra and Moon. He was developing an uneasy feeling around Moon, but the young kalashtar was right-the Watch would come to investigate.

He also likely knew the streets of the area better than any of them. Singe swallowed his pride, if not his caution. “Moon, show us a way out of here.”

Moon nodded once and, still holding Dandra’s hand, started along the street at a swift trot. Dandra twisted around to look back at Singe and he felt kesh touch his mind. This isn’t right, Dandra said inside his head. Something’s wrong. Moon shouldn’t have been able to-

I know, said Singe. But we’ll have to worry about that when we’re away from here.

The street wound like an enormous balcony along the side of the great tower, a ledge on the side of a mountain. At the end toward which Moon ran, it met the wall of another tower and became a tunnel lit by everbright lanterns. The crowds were somewhat thinner inside, though the walls of the tunnel were lined with as many shops and stalls as if there were open sky overhead instead of stone. Between a fruit vendor and a cobbler, Moon turned sharply and plunged down a broad staircase. Like the tunnel-street, the stairs were also lined with stalls, precariously balanced. A stiff breeze blew up the stairs, bearing the warm air and strong smells of an even lower thoroughfare.

Singe cursed, and called out. “Moon! Where are we going?”

Moon, already partway down the stairs, didn’t show any sign of hearing him. Dandra, however, planted her feet and dragged him to a stop. Moon blinked at her in surprise, then glared at Singe and Ashi as they caught up. “You told me to show you a way out.”

“Hanamelk said we’d find refuge from Mithas at the Gathering Light,” Singe told him. “I think we should go there, and I’m pretty sure that’s up, not down.”

Moon’s mouth twisted. “You don’t want to go to the Gathering Light. You’d just end up stuck in there. Besides, you don’t need refuge from Mithas anymore.”

“He’s not dead. He’ll come after us again.” Singe gave Moon a hard look. “Do you know somewhere better than the Gathering Light?”

“Better? Maybe not better.” The young man’s twisted lips seemed to slip and curl up into a sneer. “But it’s somewhere only I can take you.”

“Dah’mir,” Ashi said. “You said you knew where to find Dah’mir!”

Singe’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Moon, we want to get away from danger, not go running toward it. Even if we didn’t, we wouldn’t take you. This isn’t a game.”

“You do want to find him, though, don’t you?” Moon met his gaze. “Are you going to wait to see if the seers locate him? I know where he is right now. And I know this isn’t a game. Didn’t I just save Tetkashtai?”

His grip tightened on Dandra’s hand. She tore it free of his fingers. “Dandra,” she said sharply, “not Tetkashtai.”

He kept his eyes on Singe. “What will it be? I can show you where Dah’mir is-or you can run back to the Gathering Light and hide.”

Singe looked at Moon, his eyes narrow. They needed to find Dah’mir, but he wasn’t at all certain that he trusted or even believed Moon. Something was very wrong with him. Singe might have believed that the kalashtar had developed a young man’s love for Dandra, but his sudden devotion was bordering on obsession.

And yet he offered them a chance to locate Dah’mir. How could they pass that over? They didn’t need to confront the dragon-they couldn’t hope to confront him-but maybe they could get some idea of what he was doing.

The wizard glanced at Dandra. Her face was drawn taut and he could see the same questions in her eyes. He raised an eyebrow. She hesitated-then nodded. Singe looked to Ashi, and she nodded as well. He turned back to Moon. “How is it you know where he is?”

Moon’s grin showed his teeth. “Fan Adar is boring. As soon as I’m allowed, I’m leaving it for good, but I’ve already gone places in Sharn that kalashtar don’t normally go. Nevchaned would choke if he knew. I’ve seen Dah’mir’s herons in only two places. Overlook is one of them.”

“And the other?”

“Will you go if I tell you?”

Singe nodded.

Moon’s eyes glittered, and he almost shivered with excitement. “Malleon’s Gate,” he said. “There’s a place they go to roost on the edge of the old city. Now come!”

He grabbed for Dandra’s hand again, but she managed to elude his grasp, stepping to stand beside Singe. Moon’s smiled faltered, and his face hardened with jealous rage. “As you wish,” he said tightly and turned to continue on down the stairs. “Follow me. There’s a lift near here that will take us down to the lower city.”

“I don’t like this,” Dandra murmured.

“Neither do I,” said Singe. He started after the young kalashtar. “But if Moon’s thinking of turning on us, we’ll be ready for him. That power he used on Mithas-is there any way to defend against it?”

“Hit him before he can hit you.” Dandra stared at Moon. “We shouldn’t be doing this. We should get him back to Nevchaned. Something is wrong-”

“Hush!” said Ashi. “Listen!” She pointed at Moon.

The noise on the lower street came up the stairs like smoke, growing louder as they descended. It took a moment for Singe to pick out the noise that Ashi was hearing. When he did, though, a shiver crawled slowly up his spine. Beside him, Dandra tensed.

Moon was humming absently, his lips shaping soft words. It could have been the happy tune of a young man setting off on an adventure-except that it wasn’t.

“Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi-”

As the four figures moved off and down toward the lower street, Vennet raised his hat and brushed aside the rack of scarves that had hidden him in one of the stair-side stalls. Singe’s call to this kalashtar named Moon had been all the warning there’d been-the shock of the wizard’s familiar voice had nearly brought Vennet around with his cutlass drawn. It had taken tremendous self-control to dodge to the side of the stairs and spy on his enemies instead. Some might have said it was luck that they’d stopped within earshot of his hiding place too, but Vennet knew better. He’d called on the wind that blew along the stairs, commanding it to strengthen and stay their progress. And now he knew not only that their enemies had followed them to Sharn, but what they intended to do.

“Clever, clever,” he whispered to himself. Dah’mir had advised him to learn and learn he had.

Standing in the shadows behind the stall, Biish stirred and spoke. “Friends of yours, Storm?”

“Oh, yes. Old friends. The kinds of friends you’re always happy to see again.” His hands tightened convulsively.

“Who was this Dah’mir they talked about?” Biish grunted.

“That’s not your concern.” Vennet watched Singe, Dandra, and Ashi vanish into the crowd. He’d noticed the children of the Adaran neighborhood harassing Dah’mir’s herons and wondered at it-now it was clear that it was some clever ruse to mask their enemies’ presence in Sharn.

How much did they know? How much had they told the kalashtar? If they were still just looking for Dah’mir, they couldn’t know everything. They had managed to elude the watching herons, though, and they might actually uncover his and Dah’mir’s hiding place. They could be dangerous, although it didn’t seem like the young kalashtar could present much of a threat-he was clearly insane.

Dah’mir had to be warned of their approach, though. Vennet focused on the burning heat that crossed his back and invoked the power of his dragonmark. “Hear me, winds! I command you!” He paused, listening for a response, and frowned when there was none. He concentrated harder. “Hear me!”

The answer came on the whistle of the breeze and in the murmur of the crowd on the street below. What would you have us do?

“Go to my master. Tell him our enemies approach. Tell him to open his jaws to receive them. Go!”

The voice of the wind faded back into whistles and murmurs. Biish stared at him. “What are you babbling about, Storm?”

“Nothing you need to know about.” Vennet’s hands clenched once more. Something in the neck of the stallkeeper, an old woman who had found objections to him hiding among her wares, gave way with a crunch. Vennet let her drop-her dying breath had already joined the wind, and there wasn’t anyone to hide from anymore. He stepped out of the stall. “Your people will need to be alert tonight, Biish. The kalashtar may have been warned to expect something.”

The hobgoblin sneered. “I saw nothing. They make no preparations. The attack will be daring, but it won’t fail.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Vennet adjusted his hat, plucked a handsome red scarf from a rack, and stuffed it in his pocket. “Now, would you like to join me on a little hunt? It will get your blood up for tonight. I believe you’ve just seen our quarry.” He sauntered down the stairs, dreaming of the praise Dah’mir would heap on him for this bit of cleverness.

CHAPTER 12

The camp in the Sharvat Vvaraak stood empty. The horde of Angry Eyes had assembled beyond the Sharvat’s northeastern slope, on the side of the holy site that faced the distant Bonetree mound. Warriors carried their weapons and perhaps a small pack, but nothing else. Everything else-tents, supplies, food, possessions-had been left in the now-silent camp. The senior Gatekeepers clustered on the rim of the Sharvat above the horde, one among them shouting words of blessing and wisdom: “And Vvaraak said, ‘Let rage be your weapon and anger your armor. Let Eberron feed you. Leave behind the things of this world when you go to fight what is not of this world-trust in nature and you will defeat the unnatural!’”

The voices of hundreds of orcs rose in a wild roar. In pockets among the horde, the answering cries were nearly bestial-they came from warriors who had embraced the teachings with such fervor that they would fight naked, armed only with fists or whatever makeshift weapons they might seize on the battleground. Everywhere, the sounds of drums and flutes and bone rattles rose, a climax to the weird music that had filled the camp. The frenzy of the horde had reached its pitch. Every orc watched the descending eye of the sun. When it closed in sunset, the frenzy would break. The horde would be let loose. The Angry Eyes would march.

Geth’s hand clenched hard around Wrath’s hilt, listening to the words of the Gatekeepers and the warriors. Every orc’s eyes might have been on the sun, but his-and Ekhaas’s-were on Medala. The mad kalashtar and her guards stood on the slope of the Sharvat close to the senior Gatekeepers. Geth knew that he wasn’t imagining the possessive intensity that shone in her face whenever she looked out across the horde.

“This is wrong,” he growled. “This is all wrong.”

“It’s not all wrong,” Ekhaas hissed back at him. “It’s almost entirely right. That’s what makes it so terrifying. The horde should be marching, the Gatekeepers should be acting against the Master of Silence-but not with Medala at the reins.” The hobgoblin’s ears laid back. “Khaavolaar, I almost admire her.”

“Don’t say that!” Geth glared at Medala. The rush of the horde to prepare for departure after Batul’s announcement had separated them from her. Not that he’d felt any desire to remain close to the kalashtar. All he’d really wanted to do was run and hide like a dog during a thunderstorm. He hadn’t even been able to do that.

The Gatekeeper on the slope shouted yet another impassioned, inspiring passage from the teachings of Vvaraak and yet another roar from the horde answered him. Some of the loudest shouts came from immediately around Geth. Kobus bellowed loud enough for three orcs. He punched at the air with a massive fist-the other held a nasty-looking double axe-then thumped his hand across Geth’s shoulders and shouted in his ear. He spoke in Orc, but Wrath translated his words. “This will be a fight, my brother! This will be a fight to tell grandchildren about!” The big orc looked around them. “We march with one who has been to the Bonetree mound before!” he said. “We march with one who fought a dragon! We march with Geth!”

And as they had done at least half a dozen times since Kobus had sought him out to claim a place at his side, the warriors around him-once the followers of Kobus and other orc champions-took up the chant. “We march with Geth! We march with Geth! We march with Geth!”

Geth pulled his hand away from Wrath and the words faded back into unintelligible Orc. “Ker’od Geth! Ker’od Geth!” It didn’t seem to bother them that he neither spoke nor, so far as they knew, understood their language. They made up for it with enthusiasm.

“You need to acknowledge them,” said Ekhaas. “If you don’t, they’ll just keep chanting.”

He clenched his teeth and raised his gauntlet-clad arm into the air. The chant broke off into a cheer and faded away. Kobus gave him another jaw-rattling slap on the back. Geth grimaced.

A few hours ago, he would have accepted this hero-worship. He would have-no, he had enjoyed it. After talking with Medala, though, it just ate at his guts like poison. Was it real, or was it just a part of Medala’s manipulations? Was the warriors’ admiration just a side effect of her power over the horde, or was this a deliberate ploy, trying to get him to lower his defenses?

He was no leader. Just the idea of being a hero to warriors like Kobus made him feel awkward. It was good-the warmth he had first felt last night still hadn’t gone away completely-but it was also frightening. To be hero or leader gave him a responsibility to the warriors. He didn’t want that. Besides, he already had enough responsibility pressing down on his shoulders.

He looked at Ekhaas. “Do you think Medala was right about what’s going to happen in Sharn?” he asked. “All those ‘possibilities’ and ‘certainties’-maybe she’s just wrong.”

Ekhaas’s ears flicked and her amber eyes narrowed. “Prophecy is a treacherous thing,” she said. “Medala was right about one thing at least. Until an event actually takes place, there’s always a chance that it might not. The tales of the duur’kala record many instances of mistaken or misinterpreted prophecy.”

“But do you think she was right when she said that anyone who stands against Dah’mir will die?”

Ekhaas turned to look at him, but hesitated before answering. “It would be foolish,” she said, “to dismiss that possibility. We should assume that Dandra and Singe will-or have already-died in Sharn. We should assume that Dah’mir will come to the Bonetree mound as and when Medala says he will.”

Another roar from the horde covered Geth’s groan. “That’s what I was afraid of.” He looked back to the slope of the Sharvat, to Medala, and to the senior Gatekeepers. Batul stood among them, his blind eye stark white in the shadows of his face, his good eye scanning the horde. Geth’s belly tightened with his own certainty. “We need to talk to Batul,” he said. “He needs to know what Medala told us. He’ll know what to do.” He glanced at Ekhaas. “Can you cast the spell you used to protect us on him? Would it free him from Medala’s control?”

She nodded. “It should. The way he tried to warn you before, it sounds like he’s at least aware of her influence already. Do you think we’ll be able to get close to him once the horde marches?”

“Once the horde marches, it may be too late to do anything.” He started forward. Ekhaas grabbed for him, but he just pulled her after him.

“You’re going to interrupt the ceremony?”

“If I have to.”

They were already near the front of the horde and close to the Gatekeepers, but the warriors were packed tightly together in an effort to be near the druids. Squeezing through them was a battle in itself. No one wanted to give up their place. He and Ekhaas made almost no forward progress-at least not until Ekhaas turned around and shouted in Orc at Kobus. The big warrior slapped some of his friends, and they began clearing a path through the crowd, roughly thrusting aside anyone who would not move. Geth could hear his name in Kobus’s shouts, and he glanced suspiciously at Ekhaas as they followed behind the orcs.

The hobgoblin shrugged. “I told them you wanted to talk to the Gatekeepers but needed their help. What good is having followers if you don’t give them something to do?”

They were through the crowd in moments and broke onto the clear ground of the slope just as the horde let loose yet another roar. The timing wasn’t the best. The roar of the horde seemed to shove them forward. All of the senior Gatekeepers looked down to stare at them.

So did Medala. Her face knotted up into a hideous tangle. Geth put his back to her and faced the orc druids. The Gatekeeper who had been speaking glowered at him and said something in Orc. “He wants to know what you’re doing here,” Ekhaas translated, but Geth was already facing Batul.

We need to talk, he attempted to mouth silently, his lips and face moving in exaggerated motions. Not for the first time, he wished he had Dandra’s power of kesh. He added gestures-pointing at himself, then at Batul, then making talking and walking motions.

Batul just scowled and the words on his lips were easy to read. Not now!

Geth opened his hands in pleading request, but Batul’s scowl only grew deeper. He shook his head emphatically and shaped the same words. Not now! The rejection made Geth’s teeth clench, but the fire in his belly was blazing. He stared at Batul as if he did have the power of kesh and mouthed two words: Medala lied!

The reaction wasn’t what he’d hoped for. Batul thrust his tusks forward and stepped up to whisper to the speaker for the Gatekeepers before melting back again. The speaker’s angry expression changed instantly, opening like an ugly flower. He raised his arms and barked something at the crowd. Kobus howled in gleeful response and in only moments the howl spread through the horde. Ekhaas stiffened, her ears springing upright. Hands grabbed Geth and her, pushing them both toward the Gatekeepers.

“What did he just say?” Geth demanded

“That the hero of the Bonetree raid, the conqueror of Jhegesh Dol, wants to offer inspiration to the horde!”

“Me?” Geth’s voice came out in a croak. Before he could make any other protest, though, he was whirled around and the hands left him. The horde of Angry Eyes spread out before him, hundreds of orc warriors chanting his name.

Geth! Geth! Geth! Geth!

The chant rolled through him in waves that made the admiration he’d felt from Kobus and around the campfires the night before feel like nothing at all. It made him feel the same as the first time he’d seen the ocean or the first time he’d gone into real battle-incredibly small. And yet it also made him feel huge, powerful, as invincible as he felt when he shifted, but even more so.

And if it were possible, it made him hate Medala even more than he already did. All of these warriors with their red-striped horde marks would soon go into battle against a powerful enemy, an enemy that had to be fought, but that shouldn’t have been fought on Medala’s secret agenda.

But he couldn’t tell them about Medala. Caught up in the frenzy of the horde, they wouldn’t believe him. They probably wouldn’t even listen. Batul had thrust him into the one position where he could speak to everyone-but couldn’t say anything.

No, he could say one thing. If the battle had to be fought, it could at least be fought well. Geth pulled Wrath from his scabbard and thrust it over his head, crossing the purple byeshk blade with the black steel of his gauntlet. The sinking sun behind him painted both weapons red, so that bloody light dripped down his arms.

“Hit them hard!” he bellowed.

Ekhaas echoed his cry in Orc, and the roar that came back from the horde was like a wall of sound.

When the roar subsided, and the speaker for the Gatekeepers-not to mention a steady stream of warleaders making their way to the slope to imitate Geth’s passionate words-stepped forward again, there was no sign of Batul. He was gone, as if he had run away rather than speak to Geth.

“Maybe he had the better idea,” Ekhaas suggested as Kobus led them back down into the horde. “What could he have done with the information we have?”

Hands reached out of the crowd to touch Geth. He slapped a few of them back, but he didn’t feel the enthusiasm of the warriors. “He could have told us what to do.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to do that in front of Medala.”

“Maybe.”

Kobus punched Geth’s unarmored arm and said something in Orc. “Laugh, friend,” Ekhaas repeated for Geth. “We go to battle. Soon we’ll kill!”

“We should hope we’re the ones doing the killing,” Geth said grimly.

Ekhaas’s ears bent. “Do you want me to tell him that?”

“Don’t bother,” said Geth. Something in his tone had clearly already passed on to Kobus. The warrior wore a vaguely disappointed expression and was giving him a sideways glance. Geth didn’t try to correct him.

“Ekhaas duur’kala!” called a voice from behind them. “Ekhaas duur’kala, kato gosh!”

Ekhaas turned. Geth turned with her. One of the Gatekeepers, a crook-headed hunda stick in her hand, was pushing through the horde after them. Ekhaas answered her in Orc. Geth touched his hand to Wrath-now sheathed again-so he could follow their conversation.

“What do you want, Gatekeeper?” Ekhaas asked as the druid squeezed past Kobus to stand before them. The Gatekeeper’s eyes were bright, and her gray-green skin flushed as if with excitement, though she seemed a little old for youthful enthusiasm.

Her excitement extended to her voice, however. “A story,” she said. “Or stories.” She ducked her head in a gesture of awkward respect. “My name is Hona. I’m a lorespeaker among the Gatekeepers. Ever since Batul told us about your arrival yesterday, the other lorespeakers and I have wanted to meet with you, but we couldn’t leave the council lodge. Batul says you know stories of Aryd and the time of the Daelkyr War that we’ve forgotten.”

Ekhaas stood straight, her ears pricked up tall. “This is true,” she answered with the self-righteous arrogance that sometimes made Geth wonder how he endured her. Hona just looked even more excited.

“Will you tell us the stories as the horde marches?” she asked. “We’ll tell you what stories we can that you don’t already know.”

“I will be pleased to.” Ekhaas nodded gracefully. Geth was surprised her neck didn’t snap. It was an effort not to roll his eyes and reveal that he could understand what was being said. “How should I find you during the march?”

“Why don’t you come with me now?” Hona suggested. “I’ll introduce you to the other lorespeakers. You should be able to find at least one of us any time later.”

Ekhaas’s eyebrows rose, and she looked at Geth. “You were listening?” she asked, switching languages. “Should I go?”

Geth gave her a withering look as he released Wrath. “Would it matter if I said no?”

“Not really.” She looked up at the sky. “The sun will be down soon. The ceremony will end. I’ll be back before then.”

She said something to Kobus, then strode off behind Hona. Geth didn’t listen to what she told the warrior or even watch her go. There was a stone close by, and he seated himself on it, rubbing his temples with the fingers of one hand and trying to ignore Kobus’s murmured conversations with the other warriors. He would have killed for a tankard of ale. Even orcish ale. Unfortunately, all of the ale that had survived the growth of the horde would be left behind at the Sharvat when they marched. For the duration of their march, the horde would drink only water or gaeth’ad brewed to restore flagging strength.

He hoped House Deneith never decided to adopt some of the orcish practices for the Blademarks. It would make an already grim job even worse.

“Geth?”

He looked up. The warrior who had been the first to offer him ale in the camp stood before him, nervously exchanging glances with Kobus. Geth had learned his name-he tried to remember it. “Pog?” he said.

The warrior looked pleased. He stepped closer and, with a stilted accent and a look of concentration that suggested he was repeating words he didn’t really understand, said, “I … message. You … meet Batul. Follow Pog now.” He thumped his chest and gestured toward the rear of the horde. “Follow!” he repeated proudly.

A meeting with Batul? Geth was on his feet again in an instant. Ekhaas should have been here, but it was too late for that. “Yes! Yes, I’ll follow you!” he said, then repeated himself more slowly as confusion crossed Pog’s face. “Geth follow Pog.”

Kobus’s voice rumbled at the smaller warrior, and Pog spoke to him quickly in Orc. Geth put his hand on Wrath and listened in. Pog’s reply to Kobus included more detail than his broken instructions to Geth-there was a thick stand of trees just beyond the edge of the horde, and Pog was to take Geth there to meet Batul. It had to be done quickly too, because Batul would need to return to the other Gatekeepers before the sun slipped below the horizon. Kobus’s eyes narrowed. “Then we should go too,” he said.

Pog shrugged and nodded, then turned back to Geth. “Follow now!” he said.

Geth would have liked to tell Kobus that he didn’t need the extra company. He was reasonably certain that anything Batul would have to tell him would be for his ears alone. Unfortunately, with Ekhaas absent, he didn’t have any way of telling Kobus that. No matter, Batul would just dismiss the warriors if he didn’t want them close. Geth followed along behind Kobus and Pog as the smaller warrior led the way and the larger cleared a path for Geth and the other would-be followers who accompanied them.

There were five of them-Kobus ordered the rest to remain among the horde. They spread out to walk beside and behind Geth like an honor guard. Anyone who tried to reach out and touch Geth this time got their arm slapped back. It seemed a bit severe to him, but he was grateful for the peace. He tried to focus as they walked, attempting to remember all of the things he needed to tell Batul, all of the concerns that he had and all of the questions Ekhaas had raised. Maybe, he thought, she should have been there …

A curse and then a loud grunt of pain brought his head up. They were still wading through the horde, though its edge and the tops of the stand of trees where Batul waited were visible ahead. They were passing a knot of warriors clustered together around one of their number, an orc man holding a freshly broken nose. Geth’s hand still rested on Wrath and he heard one of the warriors shout at the passing group, “What did you do that for? He didn’t do anything!”

Kobus twisted around to shout back. “He was in the way! If you’ve got anything to say about it, why don’t you come and get in my way too?” He shook his double axe threateningly.

The angry warrior started forward but one of Geth’s “honor guard” dropped him with a fast punch to the head. Kobus laughed and pushed onward.

Then they were past the cluster and neither Kobus nor the violent guard seemed to pay any attention to the grumblings behind them. Geth looked back, though, and was surprised to see not only the cluster of warriors but others orcs who had been in their path staring at them and muttering in discontent. People had stopped trying to reach past the guards to touch him-Kobus, he realized, was shoving people out of his way with all the grace of a bad-tempered bull. The massive orc hadn’t been particularly gentle about it before, but now he was actively throwing warriors out of his way as if he didn’t care that he hurt them. Two orcs slammed into each other head first. Both went down.

Even more strange, Pog had picked up Kobus’s attitude. The two of them were talking in growls, the same tones Kobus had spoken to the other warriors with after Ekhaas had left. The sounds stirred a memory in Geth and he glanced around at the warriors who had taken up positions as his guard. All of them were Kobus’s men, the big warrior’s followers before he had attached himself to Geth.

Something felt wrong. Casually, Geth picked up his pace, moving just a little bit closer to Kobus and Pog so he could hear what they were saying. It wasn’t difficult. They weren’t trying to be particularly quiet or tactful. In fact, it almost seemed as if they were taking greater care that they weren’t overheard by other orcs more than that they weren’t overheard by him.

“-don’t understand how it could have happened,” Pog was saying. “Wouldn’t the Gatekeepers have felt the taint?”

“He came with a Gatekeeper. He’s friends with a Gatekeeper. He must have found a way to disguise it. I can feel it though.” Kobus came close to sneering. “I could see it when he stood before the horde and when he came down from the slope. He’s manipulating us. Him and the hobgoblin. I think I felt it even before they arrived. To think that I painted the horde marks on his face with my own hands.” He spat, then glanced at Pog. “You’ll join us?”

Pog nodded. “I’ll hold back Batul and keep him from interfering. He needs to see what’s come among us.”

Geth sucked air through his teeth and struggled to keep a calm face. What was happening? Kobus, his men, Pog-they’d turned on him? How could they have-?

His hands clenched, one around Wrath’s hilt, the other into a metal-jacketed fist. Medala. He remembered her twisted face when he and Ekhaas had stepped up onto the slope before the senior Gatekeepers. She’d known what they’d come to do-and apparently she wasn’t going to let them have the chance to do it again. Geth had no doubts that Hona’s approaching Ekhaas just before Pog’s appearance had been more than a coincidence. The duur’kala had been deliberately lured away. And would Batul have sent Pog as a messenger? No. He would have sent Orshok or Krepis. Geth had a strong suspicion that Pog would find no one to hold back among the trees. Batul wasn’t going to be waiting.

Hona’s curiosity had been increased. Pog’s admiration for Geth had left him open for manipulation-there probably had never been a message from Batul. Kobus’s antagonism had been opened like a floodgate. Medala was playing with all their emotions.

The crowd thinned abruptly. They were past the horde. The stand of trees was just ahead, thick and isolated. Any sounds of violence would be covered by the roars of the horde as the ceremony and the frenzy of the warriors built to a peak. Should he run? Kobus’s men stayed close around him. The horde was too close-packed for him to escape into and the orcs had a good chance of running him down across open ground. Flight was no option.

“Are you ready?” Kobus asked Pog as they approached the trees.

“I’m ready.” The orc turned to give Geth a smile that seemed as false and forced as a serpent’s. “Follow now?” he said.

Geth’s mouth was dry, but he nodded casually. His grip on Wrath tightened. As they passed into the shadows of the trees, he took a deep breath, reached inside himself and shifted. Sudden fire burned through his veins. Time seemed to slow.

It took only a heartbeat to see that the twilight beneath the trees was empty. No one waited for them. In a second heartbeat, Kobus whirled, whipping his axe up into two-handed grip, and shouted, “Die, traitor!”

CHAPTER 13

I don’t understand,” murmured Ashi, “I thought that whatever or whoever was causing the killing song wanted us dead.”

Dandra pressed her lips together and replied in a whisper. “That’s what Shelsatori showed me. It’s the impression I got from Erimelk too.”

“But if Moon has fallen to the killing song, why is he helping us?”

“I don’t know,” she told Ashi.

The lift they rode, the one to which Moon had guided them, slowed to a stop on a level of the middle city. The people getting off pushed and jostled Dandra and Ashi, and they had to shift to allow them past. Fortunately, very few new passengers got on. That had been the way at all of the stops the lift had made. People, festively dressed, were waiting in crowds only for the upward bound lifts. Singe had guessed that they were all heading for the upper city in anticipation of the Thronehold celebrations.

Standing just ahead of Dandra and Ashi, Moon stood firm. His unmoving stance had made it easier for Dandra to slip back away from him, allowing other passengers to come between them, so that she, Ashi, and Singe could speak. She wondered if that had even been necessary. Moon seemed oblivious to his surroundings, ignoring the passengers who bumped into him-but as Dandra’s eyes lingered on him, he turned as if he could feel the weight of her gaze. He looked back at her with an adoring intensity. “Soon,” he said.

She forced herself to nod casually. The lift glided downward again. Moon looked away once more and began to hum the eerie shifting tune of the killing song. Dandra squirmed the moment his back was turned.

“Maybe he’s helping us because he’s fallen in love with you,” suggested Ashi, keeping her voice low. “Maybe that’s holding back the violence of the killing song.”

“He’s only known me since last night! Before that, he would have known Tetkashtai.”

“We need to work this through rationally,” Singe said from behind them. The wizard had been silent since before they’d stepped onto the lift, but Dandra had known from his posture and the tightening around his mouth and eyes that he’d been thinking hard the whole time. “Hanamelk said that early victims went mad slowly while recent victims went mad more quickly but retained a cunning. I said then that it was as if whoever or whatever was behind the song was trying to find the right pitch. What if the song has found its pitch in Moon?”

“But he’s not mad,” Dandra said. “He’s not singing like Erimelk.”

“Hanamelk said Erimelk hid himself for several days before he attacked us. He couldn’t have been singing so loud then, or the kalashtar elders would have found him. If we believe that Moon is only just falling to the killing song, we’re fooling ourselves.”

Dandra risked another glance at Moon. The young man’s head was nodding in time to his humming. She felt a twinge of sorrow and pity for him. “Il-Yannah. That doesn’t change the question of why he’s still helping us, though.”

Singe bent a little closer. “He’s not helping us,” he said. “This is a trap. If he’s lying about knowing where Dah’mir is, then he’s leading us into one of the most dangerous districts of the city. If he’s not-”

“-then he’s leading us to Dah’mir,” Ashi growled. Her hands clenched. “Rond betch! Why are we following him?”

“Because we need to find Dah’mir. And because I don’t think he’s lying.” Singe patted the hunter on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll be on our guard in case he tries something, and if he does lead us to Dah’mir, we’ll look, and then we’ll run like dwarves for gold. Just be ready to use your dragonmark on Dandra.”

The lift stopped again and more people got off. What had been late afternoon proceeding into evening in the upper city rapidly became twilight as they dropped toward Malleon’s Gate. When the lift moved again, the only people left on it besides them looked like they’d be right at home in darkness: ragged and unsavory humans, a handful of strangely silent goblins, a tough-looking hobgoblin who flicked his ears and showed a smile full of very large teeth when Dandra glanced at him. She looked away again.

“I know Dah’mir isn’t behind the killing song, or I would have felt his touch on Erimelk,” she whispered to Singe, “but it’s hard to believe that there isn’t an intelligent mind behind the song. If you’re right and Moon does know where Dah’mir is, it’s too much of a coincidence that he’d be the next person to fall to the killing song.”

“I agree,” Singe said. “Except I don’t think the killing song came to Moon because he knew where Dah’mir was. I think it came to him because he was someone we’d trust. I think the only reason Moon knows where to find Dah’mir is because whatever intelligence is behind the killing song put that knowledge in his mind, the same way it showed its other victims we’d be coming to Sharn.”

Dandra turned and looked at him. “But who would know that? Who besides Dah’mir would want to kill us? Who could do this?”

Singe shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said in frustration, “but I feel like I should. We’re missing something.”

There was a slight lurch and the lift passed into darkness as the open-sided channel that it followed became a closed shaft through the flaring wall of one of Sharn’s great towers. Added to her tension and fear for Moon, the sudden darkness was a shock and Dandra grabbed for Singe’s hand. Cold fire flared into brilliance in less than an instant, though, and she felt like a child. None of the other passengers on the lift had even moved.

Except for Moon. The young kalashtar was glaring at her and Singe with a frightening, tight-lipped jealousy, and Dandra didn’t know whether to feel shame at holding Singe’s hand, anger at Moon’s obsession-or sorrow for the madness that had taken hold of him. His obsession couldn’t be natural. She let go of Singe’s hand, and something of the jealousy faded from Moon’s face. His lips relaxed and immediately began to shape silent words once more. Dandra’s belly tightened.

We’ll stop the song, Moon, she promised him silently. Whatever it takes, we’ll stop it.

The shaft opened up again, becoming a channel once more, and Malleon’s Gate spread out below them. The district sprawled among and within the roots of Sharn’s great towers, but Dandra had the eerie feeling that she looked out over a town built inside a tomb. Malleon’s Gate was dark, lit only by sporadic fires and sparse everbright lanterns. Some light, thin with dusk but brilliant in comparison to the surrounding gloom, fell in shining streaks through a few gaps among the great towers. By their spare radiance, she could make out stunted lesser towers and sprawling complexes that might once have been mansions or temples in centuries past. Everything was shrouded in a thin, mist-like smoke that caught what little light there was and spread it into a glowing haze.

A tomb, however, would have been silent. Malleon’s Gate echoed with sound. Shouts, cries, wails, calls, screeches, banging-the hard walls turned it all back onto the streets. A howl rose up to meet them, and Dandra couldn’t have said where it came from, let alone what sort of throat had produced it. One of the ragged humans riding the lift nudged another, though, and exchanged muttered words that produced a rude laugh. Dandra tightened her grip on her spear as the lift glided down into the shadows and finally came to rest at the end of its long run.

“Where do we go from here, Moon?” asked Singe.

Moon’s face creased in a smile that made Dandra’s grip tighten even more. “Just follow me,” he said. He strode off along a refuse-strewn street with a swagger.

Dandra glanced at Singe, then at Ashi. Both of them had their hands on their weapons.

Vennet didn’t wait for the gates on the lift he rode to open. He leaped over the rail as soon as it settled. Biish was waiting, leaning against the wall of a building so ancient and decrepit Vennet was surprised it could support him. They’d had to separate. There was no way Vennet could have ridden the same lift as their quarry without being recognized. Every moment of the long ride down from Overlook had grated at him. He’d passed the time imagining the ways he’d deal with Singe and Dandra. Ashi he’d decided on long ago: he wanted to take a long, close look at her dragonmarked skin, preferably while it was mounted to a wall. She couldn’t have a Siberys mark. It had to be false, a fake, some lesser mark at the very most.

“Well?” he asked the hobgoblin.

“They went that way,” Biish said.

He pointed. Vennet’s eyebrows rose. Around him, the cacophony of Malleon’s Gate blended into the whispering voices of the wind. They know where they’re going.

“I see that,” he said. “Did you carry my warning?”

The wind gave him no answer, but Biish looked at him strangely. Vennet glowered back at him. “I wasn’t talking to you!”

Biish’s ears lay back flat, but Vennet met his eyes and held them until the hobgoblin looked away. “Ban. There’s something else, Storm. I was watching the kalashtar boy. I think he’s one of the ones on your list.”

“So much the better. We’ll take him, and you can cross one off the list. Are they being followed?”

Biish nodded. “A gang of goblin pups would follow the Keeper to Dolurrh for a crown. They’ll leave members behind to show us the way.”

“Good.” Vennet had to fight back the broad grin that threatened to take over his entire face. His back itched with a fierce anticipation. “Let’s go. We don’t want to miss this.”

Biish hesitated. “Storm, it’s almost sunset. I need to get my people together if the plans for tonight are going to come together.”

“That’s what lieutenants and first officers are for, Biish.” Vennet shoved the hobgoblin onward. “Besides, this little adventure is going make someone important very happy.”

A festival mood pervaded the streets of Malleon’s Gate just as it had the streets of Overlook, although it seemed to Dandra that in the lower city Thronehold was less a celebration of the end of the Last War than an excuse for wild abandon. Not, she suspected, that most of the denizens of the district needed an excuse for abandon.

Still, there were ragged banners scattered around, and there had been a small mob waiting to take the lift to the upper city-Dandra even spotted a couple of worn skycoaches cruising overhead when she wouldn’t have expected skycoaches of any kind to come within spitting distance of Malleon’s Gate under normal circumstances. She pitied the citizens of Sharn’s upper reaches who found themselves invaded by drunken goblins intent on getting a good view of the Thronehold spectacles.

“We’re being followed,” Ashi said abruptly.

“You mean that swarm of goblin children?” A smile flickered on Singe’s lips. “I saw them.”

Ashi glared at him. “Even children can be dangerous, especially in numbers.”

“Easy.” Singe held up a hand in surrender. “Watch them if it makes you feel safe. I’d be surprised if anyone could make it through Malleon’s Gate without being followed-”

“Hush!” Moon’s warning came so suddenly that Singe stumbled. Ashi’s sword was half out of its scabbard in a heartbeat and Dandra had pushed herself up from the ground to glide on the air, ready for a fight. Moon, however, just stepped back into the shadows and pointed ahead. “There,” he said. “Dah’mir is in there.”

All of them moved swiftly to join him in the shadows. Dandra remained on the air, moving with the grace of thought. She drifted forward slightly in complete silence to get a better view of the structure Moon had pointed out. It squatted at the end of the street they had been following, a derelict oval structure that would have been impressive for its size if for nothing else. The wall that faced them was a good five stories tall and curved away into the gloom on either side. Portions of the wall near the top looked ready to collapse, and it seemed as part of the roofline had already given way. There was a rank of windows high up on the wall, but they were boarded over.

The wide doors of the building lay dead on to the end of the street, four pairs of them, lined up in a row as if to welcome crowds. Three pairs, however, were boarded up as tight as the windows. The fourth pair, though they stood closed, had recently been opened up again to judge by the splintered planks that hung from their frames. Two thin hobgoblins squatted in front of the fourth door, intent on some kind of card game. To one side of them, a small fire burned on the stones of the street. Skewered rats roasted above the fire, but Dandra stared in surprise at what else the firelight revealed.

A mural had been painted above the doors. Parts of it had been defaced, but what remained revealed the building’s nature: on painted sand, gladiators of many races struggled in eternal combat while crowds of spectators cheered them on. Protected from sunlight and weather in Malleon’s Gate, only time and a layer of dirt had dimmed strong colors and bold strokes. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar to Dandra.

“Why do I feel like I recognize that mural?” she asked softly.

“Because it’s a Bahron,” Singe said. “Bava painted that mural. She must have done it while she was in Sharn, the same time she met Natrac. Twelve moons, I’ve known art collectors who would sell their teeth to see this!”

Ashi was looking at the mural too. “Look there on the left,” she said. “There’s a laughing man standing on the side of the ring with gold in his hands. Is that Natrac?”

Dandra stared in surprise. It was Natrac. A younger Natrac, looking much the same as he had been portrayed on the warrant-notice Ashi had found. She frowned. “Do you think Natrac’s secret errand brought him down to Malleon’s Gate?”

“If it did, why didn’t he come back?” Singe asked in return.

“Maybe he came here.”

Moon turned around to face them. “I said hush! This is the place. This is where I saw Dah’mir’s herons-the roof is open inside and they can fly in and out.”

Singe glanced at Moon and Dandra saw his eyes narrow in barely suppressed suspicion. “Unless we can fly too, we’re not likely to get past those guards without making a lot of noise,” he said. “But you probably know another way in, don’t you?”

Moon nodded. He moved further into the shadows and stepped down an alley. Singe’s eyes narrowed even more. Dandra knew exactly what he was thinking: an alternate entrance to the arena was a little too convenient. She touched his shoulder. “Let me stay close to Moon,” she whispered. “If there’s trouble, I’ll stop him.”

Singe nodded and stepped aside, but Ashi caught Dandra. “Wait,” she said and put her hand against Dandra’s brow. A warmth grew under her fingers and seemed to pass into Dandra-the shielding power of the Siberys mark. If Dah’mir was inside the arena, she’d be protected from his dominating presence. Ashi released her, and Dandra nodded in silent thanks, then turned to move down the alley after Moon.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled, slowing down so she could catch up to him. “You’re beautiful,” he said to her softly as they edged along. “The way you ride the air takes my breath away.”

His words almost made Dandra sink back to the ground. She remained above it, hands squeezed tight on her spear. “Moon,” she said, “not now. You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“You make me uncomfortable,” said the young kalashtar. “It hurts me to see you standing with him-” He jerked his head at Singe “-when I know you should be with me. Your face has haunted my thoughts.”

Her teeth clenched, and she thought again of what Shelsatori had shown her in the killing song: her face, Singe’s face, Geth’s face. If she’d had any doubts that Moon’s obsession was tied to the killing song, his words erased them. But maybe that obsession could give her the edge she needed to break through the madness. Maybe this was their chance to defeat the song before it was too late. “You have to put me out of your head, Moon.” she told him. “What you’re feeling for me … it isn’t real.”

He only looked at her and shook his head. “You understand so little. It’s real. It’s more real than you know.”

The walls that surrounded the alley had begun to fall away as they walked. At the far end of the alley, they were little more than stacks of stone loosely held by crumbling mortar. Open space loomed ahead and a moment later they stepped clear of the alley. Malleon’s Gate lay at their back. Before them was a deep canyon and the edge of the plateau on which the oldest parts of Sharn had been built. In the far distance, across the canyon, she could just make out the bulky roots of the great towers that rose on Sharn’s other plateaus. Ancient stonework hid the natural ground at her feet, but the drop was still as sheer and dangerous as any cliff Dandra had ever seen.

Moon grasped her hand suddenly and, for a moment, fear gripped her as well-if Moon meant to turn against them, this was as good a spot as any-but he just drew her along a narrow path that followed the lonely edge. Dandra heard Ashi gasp and Singe curse as they emerged from the alley in turn and caught sight of the strange vista, but she didn’t dare to turn on the narrow path to look back. She could float, but she couldn’t fly, and while slipping off the edge wouldn’t be fatal, it would be inconvenient.

The path Moon followed led them back toward the arena. The ruins didn’t quite reach the tall walls-it looked like they had been cleared to make way for the arena-but the fire of the guards was well distant along the street. Moon’s hold on Dandra’s hand tightened, and he raced with her across the open space. A broken wall jutted from the end of the arena, running right up to the edge of the canyon. Moon tugged Dandra through a gap, and they were on a sort of terrace, perhaps built as a private retreat for the more important patrons of the arena.

They were also, briefly, alone. The instant they were beyond the wall, Moon swung Dandra around, pulling her close and wrapping his free hand around her waist to tug her down so that their faces were level. The pupils of his eyes had shrunk down to small dots like black holes in his face. He pointed at an open doorway leading from the terrace into the shadows of the arena’s interior. When he spoke, his voice was an urgent rasp. “Don’t scream or Dah’mir will hear you,” he said. “I’m taking a chance for you. Listen to me: when the time comes, don’t resist.”

Dandra shoved at him, trying to pry herself free, but his hold on her was strong. “Let me go, Moon!”

He gave her a shake. “Tell me you won’t resist, Tetkashtai! Tell me you won’t resist!”

She glared at him. “I’m not Tetkashtai!”

“You are. Inside you are. Dandra is a part of Tetkashtai and Tetkashtai is a part of Dandra. I should kill you the way I’m supposed to, but I can’t do it. I want you to join us, the way it was supposed to be.” His arms opened, and he held her only with his tiny, mad eyes. “Dah’mir will succeed in Sharn. I’m going to make sure he does. Your friends have to die, but you can survive if you-”

Deep inside Dandra, something stirred, and she knew with an abrupt certainty that the young kalashtar before her was no longer Moon, that the rebellious youth was gone. Someone else looked out at her from behind his eyes. Someone else spoke through his mouth.

“-just-”

And maybe, she realized, that someone was right that Tetkashtai remained a part of her. Feelings that were less memory than instinct rose out of her. The arm that had been around her waist, the way it had tugged her down to look into a familiar face, the way a phrase was turned, the tones beneath Moon’s voice …

“-don’t-”

And the thing that she and Singe had missed fell into place. Moon hadn’t loved her-or Tetkashtai-any more than he had known where to find Dah’mir. But someone else had loved Tetkashtai. Someone who had mastered the power of the long step, who knew how to use it as a weapon as Erimelk and Moon had.

“-resist!”

And her voice cracked as she said in amazement, “Virikhad?”

Moon’s eyes lit up at the name of Tetkashtai’s lover. “Suri! You remember me!” He reached for her again.

Dandra jerked on her spear, snapping the butt of it up between Moon’s legs, and his words ended in a horrible gurgle. She thrust herself away from him, and her spear spun again. The shaft cracked against the side of Moon’s head, and he went down, eyes rolling back to show white before falling closed.

Beyond his unconscious body, Singe and Ashi froze on the broken wall, their faces wide in surprise. “Dandra!” hissed Singe. “What-?”

Dandra let her spear fall and pushed her mind out to the wizard and the hunter before either of them could speak again. Be quiet! she said through kesh. She pointed at the passage leading from the terrace into the arena. He said Dah’mir is inside.

Singe’s face darkened as he came forward, trading silently. He tried to warn him?

No, said Dandra. She settled onto the ground and knelt to touch Moon’s head. He’d have a nasty bruise, but he wasn’t seriously injured. He tried to warn me-or at least, he tried to warn Tetkashtai.

She passed the events of the last few moments through the mental link, then let the connection of kesh fade. Singe’s eyebrows rose. Ashi’s body tensed.

“Virikhad survived Medala’s destruction at the Bonetree mound?” she asked in a whisper. “How is that possible?”

Dandra kept her voice low too. “I don’t know. Maybe he was stronger than I thought he was.” She bit her lip. “I wonder if he wasn’t the only one to survive. He said ‘I want you to join us, the way it was supposed to be.’”

“Medala,” Singe said. “Tetkashtai, Virikhad, and Medala were supposed to be the first servants Dah’mir created for the Master of Silence. But if she survived too, where is she? Wouldn’t two kalashtar at a time fall to the killing song then?”

“One answer, more questions. I wouldn’t even be certain Virikhad is still inside Moon. He might have left him when I knocked him out. There could be another victim of the killing song waiting for us in Overlook.” An unpleasant thought struck Dandra. “Unless he’s gone to tell Dah’mir.”

Singe shook his head. “If he had, we wouldn’t still be standing here. But why wouldn’t he?” His eyes opened wide abruptly. “Twelve bloody moons. I don’t think Dah’mir knows Virikhad survived either! Remember how he acted at Tzaryan Keep? Until he found Taruuzh’s binding stones, he thought you were the last link to his experiments, Dandra. He wouldn’t have thought that if he knew Virikhad or Medala was still alive.”

“But why would Virikhad secretly be helping Dah’mir then?” Ashi asked. “He said he was going to make sure Dah’mir succeeded in Sharn-we don’t even know what Dah’mir is supposed to succeed at.”

Dandra drew a deep breath. “We can find out though,” she said. “If Dah’mir hasn’t come for us yet, chances are he still doesn’t know we’re on his doorstep.” She turned to the passage into the arena. “We came to spy on him. Let’s do it.”

Ashi stayed with Moon. Dandra was certain her blow would keep him unconscious long enough for them to get into and out of the arena, but they couldn’t take the chance that he might wake. If Virikhad was still in control of the young man, he’d certainly try to betray them-and if he wasn’t, there was a strong chance that Moon would wake to the same screaming violence as Erimelk. Dandra almost thought that she saw his lips twitch, as if some part of him was still singing the killing song, even as she and Singe stepped into the passage.

The idea of the insidious song’s hold on him only stiffened her resolve. Maybe Virikhad and Dah’mir weren’t working together, but if Tetkashtai’s lover was secretly helping the dragon, perhaps there was some connection between his plots and the dragon’s. Maybe they could even find a way to aid the victims of the killing song.

Or maybe not, she reminded herself. All of the kalashtar elders hadn’t been able to trace the source of the killing song, let alone aid its victims. Maybe she knew what-or who-was causing the song, but there were still too many pieces missing. Like how Virikhad had come to be in Sharn, waiting for them, or how he’d survived at all.

Or why he wasn’t still the screaming, shattered mind she’d unleashed against Medala.

A hand touched her shoulder. She looked up at Singe. The wizard’s face was somber. “Are you all right?” he murmured. “Ashi could come with me if you want to stay with Moon.”

Dandra lifted her chin and stepped into the air. “Not a chance.”

CHAPTER 14

If Kobus had expected Geth to stand in surprise or to lunge for the obvious threat, he was wrong. The instant of anticipation passed and battle burst over Geth. He whirled, spinning hard to the left and putting the entire weight of his body into a punch at one of the warriors who had walked on that side of him. The warrior had been drawing an axe from his belt, but Geth’s gauntleted fist took him in the side of the face. Bone cracked and skin split. Blood flashed on the air. The warrior went down, stunned, and Geth leaped through the opening he had made in the closing circle, drawing Wrath as he moved.

“Garu’s eye, he knew!” yelped one of the warriors. “How did he know?”

“Where’s Batul?” asked Pog.

“Doesn’t matter,” Kobus growled. Geth couldn’t tell which question he was answering. The big orc stalked forward, double axe at the ready. The weapon looked as vicious as Kobus himself: two battle-axes, each with a two broad heads, mounted at either end of a stout wooden shaft as thick as a woman’s wrist. Four sharp edges gleaming in the dull light. The other orcs were armed with lesser axes and heavy-bladed swords. The warrior Geth had taken down staggered back to his feet, blood coursing from a now misshapen face. His eyes were tiny and intent. Even Pog watched Geth with a cold hatred.

They reminded Geth of wolves circling their prey. Seven big, well-armed wolves-and in their pinprick eyes, he was certain he could see Medala’s mad malevolence. Gauntlet raised, Wrath ready, he watched them warily.

“Close around him,” said Kobus. “Don’t let him through. The tainted beast-blood isn’t leaving these trees alive-”

A low snarl crept out of Geth’s throat. One of the largest trees in the stand was just behind him. He stepped back against it and swept his arms wide, sword and gauntlet pointed at the nearest warriors. Kobus stopped and his eyes narrowed.

“He can understand us,” he said. He thrust his tusks forward. “Understand this, friend. You might have fooled us for a night, you might have fooled Batul, but you fool no one now. Whatever power you had has failed. We see you for what you are: an agent of the daelkyr. You die here. The horde of Angry Eyes will march-and we’ll carry your head on a pole before us!”

Geth clenched his teeth. His gut ached. If Ekhaas had been here, she might have been able to talk some sense into the warriors. She might have been able to break Medala’s hold on them. These were warriors he had drunk and sung with, whose campfires he had shared. “No!” he spat. They wouldn’t be able to understand anything he said, but he had to try. Memories of Pog offering him ale, of Kobus slapping him after their fight, were raw on his soul. “This is Medala’s doing! She’s your enemy, not me!” He spoke two words loud and slow. “Medala … enemy.”

His words fell on uncomprehending ears. Kobus grimaced and drew back as if in disgust at the alien words. Fear flashed in the eyes of one orc. “Magic! He’s trying to put his power on us again!” He screamed a battle cry and threw himself forward, axe swept back to strike.

It was a killing blow. Geth reacted the way he had to. He lunged forward, and Wrath flashed as he snapped his arm back across his body. The forked tip of the extended sword tore into the warrior’s shoulder and chest. Taut muscles broke beneath the blade. The orc’s arm, pulled by the muscles of his back, seemed to wrench itself backward for a moment before Wrath’s fork caught his throat and severed his windpipe. The warrior stumbled in surprise before finally collapsing, blood spreading out in a flood.

He hadn’t even hit the ground before the other orcs were swarming in. “Kill him!” bellowed Kobus.

Geth jumped back again and felt his backside strike the rough bark of the tree. He pivoted, putting the trunk between him and the orcs. His weapons felt as heavy on his arms as his heart in his chest. Seven to one were no odds for clean fighting-or mercy. He kept pivoting right around the tree, swinging Wrath more by instinct than intellect as he went.

The byeshk sword cut down into the soft belly of the first orc coming around the far side of the tree. Geth turned with the blow and whirled out into the open. It cost him the protection of the tree, but for a moment the dying orc offered him the same cover as his friends tried to get around him. A wide-bladed sword painted with the same red hordemarks that decorated its wielder swung at him-he turned it with his gauntlet and swung Wrath in reply, but the warrior was fast and leaped back.

Another orc started to shove forward and pulled up short. Geth caught a flash of wariness in his face and threw himself to the side just as one head of Kobus’s double axe flashed down from behind to slice the ground here he’d stood. The shifter rolled on his shoulder, came back up in a crouch, and before Kobus had a chance to recover, pushed himself forward again, charging to meet the two orcs who had come around the tree behind the big warrior. One of the pair tried to block Wrath’s whistling arc. The other tried to swing his axe under Geth’s gauntleted arm, aiming for his vulnerable torso.

Geth twisted aside and the axe skimmed past his ribs, slicing fabric and nicking flesh, but no worse. The steel-jacketed fingers of Geth’s hand, however, raked at the warrior’s head as he passed, caught on hair and ear, and spun him into Kobus. Both went down in a tangle. At the same moment, Wrath chopped deep into the thick wooden shaft of the other warrior’s axe. The orc was canny and turned his weapon sharply, trying to trap Geth’s sword. Geth didn’t bother fighting him for it. Already moving backward, he kept on turning, slamming the elbow of his gauntlet back into the warrior’s face and stomping down hard on his shin. Something-face or leg, maybe both-splintered loudly. The warrior screamed and fell.

His fall freed Wrath. Geth whipped the sword forward and hacked at the orc with the torn ear as he staggered clear of Kobus. Wrath’s edge sheared clean through his skull, spraying blood and bits of brain across Kobus’s massive chest. The dead warrior pitched over sideways, his limbs spasming-and Medala’s hatred, strangely, vanishing from his eyes like a candle flame in a windstorm. It wasn’t until his ruined head bounced against the leaf-covered earth that Geth realized he had just killed Pog.

A memory of the warrior offering him ale came back to him with terrible clarity. Tag domad’ad chuf! You can drink with me and my friends!

That moment of distraction cost him. Hands grabbed onto his leg from behind and sudden pain shoved a groan out of his throat as the orc he had knocked down sank big teeth into the meat of his calf. Shifting-toughened flesh resisted his teeth, but the orc gnawed like an animal. Geth tried to pull away, but the orc held on with hands and jaws. Kobus shouted and swung his axe.

Geth saw the heavy blades cut the air, saw the long shaft slide through Kobus’s fingers to extend the reach and power of the blow. The two remaining warriors, including the one whose cheek Geth had shattered, surged in at his side. Geth flung up sword and gauntlet to meet their attacks-

— and fell backward as the orc who had trapped ripped suddenly at his leg. His savagery brought new pain burning through Geth’s leg and knocked him off his already awkward balance. The shifter crashed back, and Kobus’s axe swung past in a flat arc just above his chest.

It caught Wrath though. The Dhakaani sword rang like a heavy chime as it was ripped from Geth’s grip and flung away into the shadows of the trees.

Geth came down hard on top of the wounded orc, the fall wrenching his leg out of the warrior’s grasp. He also came down on top of the warrior’s injured leg, bringing another scream out of him-a scream that ended sharply as Geth kicked him in the head. Geth got his gauntlet up, swept aside a blow from the warrior with the shattered cheek, and rolled across the ground as the second head of Kobus’s axe swung down. He felt a tug on his scalp as he moved and looked back to see locks of thick brown hair clinging to the axe as Kobus whirled it up again.

The big orc howled in frustration and spat something in Orc, but without Wrath Geth could no longer understand him. He bared his teeth and climbed to his feet, his chewed leg forcing him to limp. Kobus’s eyes flicked to his injury and his posture changed. He sank back on his tree-trunk legs and began to swing his double axe in slow circles. His eyes focused on Geth’s face, then he began to move forward, step by slow step. The other two orcs moved out to the sides, coming at Geth from right and from left. Geth backed up cautiously, but they followed, quicker than him with uninjured legs.

They weren’t, however, entirely uninjured. Geth feinted toward the warrior with the broken cheek. His face was beginning swell, squeezing closed the eye above the cheek. Geth took a fast step toward him, feinted with his gauntlet toward the warrior’s good side-then leaped at him, striking with the heel of his empty left hand straight at his broken face. Bones that were already shattered crumbled under his blow, driving inward. The warrior wailed and Geth swarmed around behind him even as Kobus and the final orc turned to help their friend. Geth took a firm grip on the warrior’s good cheek with on hand, wrapped the other arm around his throat, and twisted hard.

The orc’s neck snapped and his body went limp. Quick as thought, Geth bent down, grabbed the axe from his dead hand and hurled it the last warrior. The heavy-headed weapon hadn’t been meant for throwing, but at close range and with Geth’s strength behind it, it flew well enough to split the orc’s breastbone and sink deep into his chest.

The death of his final man didn’t slow Kobus down, however. His double-axe spun up, stopped at the top of its arc, then chopped down. Geth barely blocked it, and the force of the impact left his arm numb inside the gauntlet. He gritted his teeth and blocked a second blow, this one low, as Kobus whirled the second head at him. Then a third blow, high, and a fourth, low. Deceptively low. He left himself open as he tried to stop it and abruptly Kobus had turned his weapon and the edge was diving across Geth’s belly. He twisted to avoid it and the steel cut a deep gash across his hip instead. Geth staggered, then staggered again as he tripped over Pog’s still body. He slid down to one knee.

And without a moment’s hesitation, Kobus released one hand from the shaft of his double axe and clamped it around Geth’s throat, squeezing hard. It was the same tactic that had almost won him the challenge in the horde camp, but this time he kept Geth down, forcing him to his knees in Pog’s warm blood.

Shadows swam in Geth’s vision. Kobus grinned horribly, and his pin-prick mad eyes looked merry. He spoke in Orc, and while Geth couldn’t understand the words, he could guess at them. We’ve been here before, you and I.

It occurred to Geth that he wasn’t sure who did the speaking. Kobus had almost strangled him-but in their last meeting, Medala had almost suffocated him. Who spoke from Kobus’s mouth?

It didn’t matter. Geth met Kobus’s eyes and managed to force a few words out of his crushed throat. “Last time,” he croaked, “I wasn’t armed.”

His right arm brought up Pog’s axe, plucked from the ground, and swung it in an awkward but powerful arc.

The bit deep into Kobus’ upper arm, cutting through flesh and chopping through bone. Kobus screamed. His grasp went limp, and he staggered back. His arm hung from a tatter of muscle, fingers clenching wildly. His double-axe fell from his other hand as he tried to clutch at his maimed limb. Geth sucked air into his lungs and went after him. Kobus looked up, his eyes pools of insane hatred. Tears of rage washed his red horde marks. Geth’s gut twisted.

Kobus lunged at him, massive jaws snapping. Geth stepped back and swung the axe, burying it in Kobus’s skull. The speed of the warrior’s moving body carried him on to plow into the dirt, but when he stopped, he lay very still.

Geth groaned and staggered, releasing his hold on his shifting and sucking in his breath as the act tugged closed the worst of his wounds. Vulnerability rushed back to him-vulnerability and the ache of what he had done. He put his hands to his forehead and knotted his fingers in his hair. “Tiger and Wolf-”

“Geth!”

An orc’s voice, but not speaking Orc. Young. Clear. Familiar. Geth spun around, his heart lifting suddenly. “Orshok!” he said-then froze.

It was the young druid, but his face was cold and his eyes were as hard and insane as Kobus’s had been. As Medala’s were. Geth’s heart felt like it had been torn out of his chest.

In one hand, Orshok held a hunda stick. In the other, he held Wrath. He flung it in the dirt at Geth’s feet almost casually. Geth stared at it, then up at Orshok. The Gatekeeper smiled.

“No,” Geth groaned. “No.”

“Kill or be killed.” The voice that came from Orshok’s lips didn’t have the warm tones Geth had come to know in his travels. Instead, it was dry and harsh, the voice of a kalashtar who had traveled to the heart of madness and back. “Either way, I will have what I want.” Orshok’s eyes flickered-and a low song rippled out of his mouth. Geth realized he knew the rhythm, that he had heard it in the drums and flutes and rattles of the horde of Angry Eyes, but this was the first time he had heard it given voice and something about it chilled him to the bone.

“Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi-”

Orshok’s eyes focused on him, and the song rose to a pitch. He raised his hunda, holding it like a weapon. Geth didn’t move. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t kill a friend. Run, he told himself. Take Wrath and run!

And leave Orshok in Medala’s power?

Then a shadow moved behind Orshok, seeming to emerge from the solid trunk of one of the trees. Something rose and fell with a swiftness Geth wouldn’t have expected. It struck Orshok across the back of his head, and the young orc’s eyes rolled back. His body slid to the ground-and Batul faced Geth over his prone student, his own hunda stick slowly sinking.

“You fool,” he said harshly. “You couldn’t wait? You couldn’t restrain yourself?”

Geth barely heard the words. He stared at Orshok, anguish and giddy relief pummeling him. “He’s not dead, is he?”

“No.”

“Medala had him.” Geth looked up at Batul. “Medala had all of them! She still has her powers and your magic can’t stop her. She’s manipulating the entire horde, even the Gatekeepers-”

Batul slammed the butt of his hunda stick into the ground, his good eye blazing. “I knew that, you idiot! Word of Vvaraak, didn’t you think I knew that? If you’d gone along with her, if you’d waited to speak to me some other time-any other time-this might not have happened!” He gestured around them.

“Geth! Batul!” Ekhaas came charging out of the trees, her sword drawn, and pulled up short at the sight of the carnage. Her eyes went wide, and her ears stood up tall. “Khaavolaar!”

Geth felt very small and very ashamed, felt guilty for surviving a fight that shouldn’t have happened. Wouldn’t have happened if he’d held himself back. “They lured me away. It was a trap.”

Ekhaas pressed her lips together. “I guessed as much when I realized Hona’s curiosity was too intense to be natural. Medala used my arrogance against me.” She nodded toward Batul. “He found me before I could find you again, though, and I told him what we’d discovered-and he told me what he already knew.”

She actually looked humbled too. Batul growled a curse under his breath. “And neither of you considered that allowing me to remain largely under Medala’s control for the moment might give you more insight later? You’re both fools.” He sighed and his anger seemed to draw back. He closed his eyes wearily, then looked back at them. “I have to return to the ceremony of the horde before the spell that brought me here ends-and before Medala realizes that I’m not entirely under her power. You two will have to leave. She’s backed you into a corner.”

“Medala spoke through Orshok,” said Geth. “She said kill or be killed, she’d still have what she wanted.”

Batul nodded. “If you died, you’d be out of her way. If you lived, you’d face the rage of the horde for killing friends and oath-brothers. The bodies would have been found, though now Orshok will wake and raise the alarm. Even when you flee, you’ll be reviled, a fallen hero.”

The words turned like a knife in Geth’s belly. A reviled hero. He’d felt that way before. The loss of what he had enjoyed again, however briefly, stung. His head dropped-and he stared into Kobus’s split face.

Orshok lay unconscious before him. Pog’s body grew cold. They had died at his hands-but also because Medala had sent them against him like tokens in a game. The sting of loss turned into fiery anger. He raised his head, teeth clenched. “Medala’s still up to something. We can’t just run!”

An idea flashed in Batul’s eye. “Do you think you could run ahead of the horde-all the way to the Bonetree mound?”

Geth stared at him, but Ekhaas’s ears twitched in understanding. “If she’s going to do something unexpected, she’s likely to do it there. We can scout ahead.”

“And if you need us, we’ll be there. We can do that.” Geth bent down and snatched Wrath up from the ground. “But we’ll need guidance. I don’t know the way to mound from here.”

Batul hesitated for a moment, then his hands went to his neck and pulled an amulet from beneath his shirt. “I think this may be what has enabled me to hold back Medala’s influence,” he said, “but your need is greater than mine now. Run north tonight, then lie on the ground at dawn, and it will show you the way.”

Geth knew the amulet. When he’d carried Wrath out of the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol, he’d also carried out the amulet, and Batul had recognized it immediately as a lost artifact of the Gatekeepers. There was a dragon’s scale encased within it, a relic of the legendary Vvaraak. Geth drew a sharp breath. “Batul, I can’t take that!”

The old druid looked at him sharply and for a moment, Geth had the eerie feeling he was staring at him not with his good eye, but with the eye that was milky and blind. “You will take it,” Batul said with confidence and a wry smile, “and when the time is right, you will bring it back and wake me from sleep. I see this.” He started to lift the amulet over his head.

Geth stopped him. “Wait. Do you see anything else?” He licked his lips. “Do you see Dandra and Singe?”

Batul shook his head. “No-but there are many things that I don’t see.” The orc drew a deep breath, then pulled off the amulet and put it in Geth’s hands. Almost at once, his good eye blinked and a struggle crossed his face. “Run now,” he whispered. He turned and stumbled toward the nearest large tree-and passed straight into its trunk. Druid magic shimmered like starlight on the bark for a moment before fading. Geth clenched his fingers around the amulet.

North put the trees between them and the majority of the horde, though none of the warriors were looking in their direction. Less than two fingerwidths of the sun remained above the horizon, and the attention of the frenzied horde was entirely on the druids who stood and shouted on the rim of the Sharvat Vvaraak.

Geth and Ekhaas ran hard and silent through the gathering gloom. The land rose into a ridge and they climbed it. Geth’s leg still ached a little, but Ekhaas’s songs had healed it enough that he could run without too much discomfort and had lent him a little extra speed as well. She herself wore magical boots that could have allowed her to run as fast as a horse, though she slowed just enough to let him keep pace with her.

They knew the exact moment when the sun set and night fell because the noise of the horde-almost a constant roar-vanished into silence. An instant later, individual voices rose into the star-flecked sky. The senior Gatekeepers were chanting, invoking the power of nature in unison. Geth paused and looked back.

Last night, he’d listened at a campfire as an old orc warrior with more scars than face had explained what would happen when the horde was ready to march. “The horde comes together, and all the warriors receive horde marks as a symbol that we’ve left our tribes behind and march as one. When the horde marches, we leave everything but our weapons in the camp as a symbol that Eberron provides all we need to sustain ourselves.” The warrior’s hideous face had looked around the circle of his audience. “But there’s one more symbol, a sign we make so that our enemies know we have already left our lives behind and are willing to die to defeat them-”

The voices of the druids cracked and broke, and a new chorus of hissing, crackling voices seemed to answer them. Flames burst up from the Sharvat Vvaraak, a dozen pillars that climbed into the sky then collapsed back down, filling the flat basin with fire and the night with new light. Shapes danced in the inferno-the shapes of fire elementals summoned by the druids. The camp upon the sacred Sharvat and everything that had been left in it burned, severing the ties of the warriors to the lives they had left.

A roar rose up from the horde that drowned out even the crackling voices of the elementals. Against the glare of the massive fire, Geth could see dark figures begin to swarm across the land. The horde of Angry Eyes was on the move.

“Khaavolaar,” said Ekhaas. “That’s a sight you only see once in a life. It’s like an entire town is burning.”

A growl rose into Geth’s throat. “When a town burns, it’s bigger,” he said. “Come on.” He turned away from the flames and moved on up the ridge, once again running away, once again reviled and hated because he hadn’t been able to hold himself back.

Except this time he ran with a purpose. With every stride, Wrath bounced at his side, Adolan’s collar jumped around his neck, Batul’s amulet thumped against his chest-and the Bonetree mound drew a little closer.

CHAPTER 15

The passage was straight, broad, its walls broken only by a few closed doors and decorated with more of Bava’s murals-further confirmation of Dandra’s guess that the terrace had been for the arena’s better clients. It had the same air of abandonment as the exterior of the arena, but there were also signs of activity. A couple of cheap cold fire torches had been jammed into ill-fitting brackets. A thin path of footprints was worn into the dust and debris of the floor. One of the doors off the passage was partly ajar, and more cold fire lit the room beyond. There was no sound within. Dandra peered inside without touching the door. She could see the corner of sleeping pallet, as well as a heap of scattered clothing. Swirling marks had been drawn on the walls as if by a bored child, but these scrawls resembled the patterns of a dragonmark. They surrounded other rough drawings-clouds and lightning and ships of strange design-and Dandra clenched her teeth as she eased away from the door.

“Dah’mir hasn’t abandoned Vennet yet,” she said.

Singe lifted his rapier. “Good.”

As they moved closer to the far end of the passage, Dandra became aware of a smell in the air. At first it was merely stale, but it quickly grew stronger and more pungent. By the time they stood at the base of a short flight of stairs leading up into the open space of the arena, it was a sickening stench. The air was thick with it. Dandra pressed a hand over her nose and mouth and fought back a rising nausea.

“Bird droppings,” said Singe in answer to her unasked question. “Bird droppings and rotting bodies.” He eased one of the cold fire torches from its bracket, damping the glow of the heatless magical flames in his free hand, and mounted the stairs. Dandra followed him.

They stood at the rear of what must once have been the best seats in the arena, close enough to the oval ring for a good view, far enough back to be out of danger if combat went awry. The light that leaked through Singe’s fingers fell on one large chair that remained in place, a cushion moldering on the seat. Others lay scattered in pieces.

Firelight shone up from the arena floor, flickering in long shadows across the steep tiers of benches that circled the arena, their empty ranks broken by other private boxes higher up. Just as Moon-or Virikhad-had said, the arena had no roof and was open in the center to what passed for sky in Malleon’s Gate. The light from below made the opening seem even darker and turned the sagging poles and tattered remains of canvas that had once been awnings over the upper ranks of benches into great ribs trailing scraps of flesh. Both the broken awnings and the benches beneath them were marked with long white streaks of bird droppings. Dandra guessed that the droppings had come from Dah’mir’s herons, though none of the black birds were visible. Maybe they were all up in Overlook, watching Fan Adar.

Singe breathed in her ear. “Do you feel Dah’mir’s presence?”

In their other encounters with the dragon, Dandra had felt his dominating presence tugging at the edge of her consciousness before she’d actually seen him. This time, though, she felt nothing. “No,” she answered, “but that could be because Ashi’s dragonmark protects me.”

She stepped off the air and, staying low, moved cautiously forward until she could look over the low rail that surrounded the box and see down into the ring below. Her breath caught in her teeth.

That light that danced around the arena came from cold fire that burned on several stout posts set into the floor of the arena. The stench of decay that filled the air came from five bodies that lay within the circle. Dandra looked away, forced air into her lungs, and made herself look back again.

The arena floor was covered in sand. At one end, in the twilight beyond the torches’ glow, the sand lay in rolls and billows as if it had been scraped up and pushed around to make a bed for some huge creature-almost certainly Dah’mir in his dragon form. At the other end, lay the bodies, and the sand around them had been washed as smooth as a beach at water’s edge-except instead of water, it had been blood and other fluids that had smoothed the sand. Three of the bodies lay together, and two of those showed the most advanced decay. Both had bloated, and one had burst, then liquefied so that its blackened tissues spread out as if running off its bones. By contrast, the third body in the cluster was emaciated, pale, and stiff. From above, Dandra couldn’t tell how he had died.

She knew the body had been a man because of his clothes. From the clothes, embroidered in distinctive patterns of metallic thread, she also knew he had been a kalashtar. The filth-crusted clothes that pinched the more decayed bodies were likewise kalashtar in design.

The other two bodies, though, were not kalashtar. One was a human, the other a dwarf, and most of the blood that soaked the sand spread out around them. Deep, dark-edged gashes crossed their throats. Their gaunt faces were waxy and sunken, but they hadn’t bloated yet-they hadn’t been dead as long as the kalashtar. Flies flew around all of the bodies and across the blood-stained sand in clouds thick as smoke. Dandra could hear the hum of them from where she stood.

The flies also circled a long work table that had been set on the sand just behind where the human and the dwarf lay, but they found far less of interest there and didn’t linger. Dandra’s gaze darted over the myriad things that littered the table: tools, clamps, smooth pieces of wood that might have been models or forms of some kind, partly used spools of bright gold wire, a vessel containing thin plates a handspan long of the same metal, another vessel of clear crystal baubles. A heavy brazier, as cold and lifeless as the corpses, stood nearby. Along the sides of the table and from the table to the brazier, the sand had been trodden into a hard-packed path. The feet of the dwarf and the human still lay on it.

Singe had joined her at the rail. Dandra felt him tense. “Twelve moons,” he said. “Look-on the end of the table. Do you see that?”

She saw. It was a box of dull gray metal, unadorned and unassuming, but she knew that box. It was the box that had been hidden for thousands of years inside the Grieving Tree of Taruuzh Kraat. It was the box with which Dah’mir and Vennet had fled the ancient Dhakaani stronghold.

It was the box that contained-or at least had contained-the black binding stones that Dah’mir would turn against the kalashtar.

“Light of il-Yannah,” Dandra swore softly. “He wouldn’t have just left the stones out in the open, would he?”

“Most people don’t just leave bodies rotting in the open either.”

Dandra looked around the arena again. Except for the flies, there was no sign of movement or life. There was no sign of Dah’mir in any of his forms. Her eyes went back to the box, then to the bodies on the sand. “We need to have a closer look,” she said.

Singe nodded agreement and jammed the torch he carried into a crevice in the rail around the box, a marker in the darkness. There were shadowed gates below-most closed, at least one ajar-opening onto the floor of the arena, but to reach whatever passages led to them, they would have had to find their way through the arena’s innards. At the end of the box seats, however, the rail was low and easily crossed, giving them access to the regular seats and to stairs among the benches that led toward the arena floor. The stairs ended at a wall around the ring that left a fair drop to the sand below. Dandra paused at the wall, took another careful look around, then swung herself over and dropped to the floor. Her feet touched the sand for only a moment before she pushed off to remain floating above it, her spear at the ready. When Singe was down as well, they moved forward together. Up close, the humming of the flies was a loud drone.

The bodies of the human and the dwarf were closest, and they paused by them first. In spite of the decay that had set in, the hands of both were clearly bruised, nicked, and burned as if from many hours of careful labor. Many, many hours to judge by the path worn into the sand. Even in death, their fingers were gnarled, marked for eternity with dents the exact size of the wire on the table. Their legs had been shackled with a length of chain, enough to have permitted them to walk awkwardly, but not to run. “They were prisoners,” Dandra guessed. “Dah’mir had them working on something.”

“Their clothes are good,” Singe said. “Too good for Malleon’s Gate.” He looked at the tools and materials on the table and the muscles of his jaw tightened. “I think they were goldsmiths, probably from the upper city.”

“What do you think they were doing?”

Singe stepped in silence over to the metal box, examined it for a moment, and opened the lid.

When Vennet had seized the box in Taruuzh Kraat and opened it, only Geth had been in a position to get a good look inside. Dandra had touched his mind with kesh, though, and he’d shared what he’d seen. As if she’d seen it herself, the memory of twenty blue-black dragonshards, each no bigger than a finger and wrapped in a filigree of gold, shining against ancient, crumbling red fabric, had been burned into her mind.

The red fabric was gone from the box now and the individual binding stones replaced with neatly stacked creations of twisted gold. Singe drew one out and held it up. Plates and wires of gold, interspersed with clear crystals, had been fashioned into a sort of bracer, a long cuff to fit around the forearm. In a way, it was beautiful-and also sinister. Mounted on the bracer, fastened within a cage of gold, was one of the binding stones. Just as she had when Vennet had first held up one of the ancient stones, Dandra felt a chill pass through her at the sight of it. She could feel the stone like a void on the edge of her awareness. She took a step back, but couldn’t take her eyes off the golden bracer.

The swirls of metal and crystal reminded her of something else, of the great device Dah’mir had used beneath the Bonetree mound to exchange the minds of Tetkashtai, Medalashana, and Virikhad with those of their psicrystals, the first step in recreating them as servants of the Master of Silence. The bracers were so much smaller than that device, though-but then the binding stone that Dah’mir had used in the device had been a larger, weaker imitation of Taruuzh’s stones. Dandra swallowed as an idea came to her.

“Singe, is there a place where a second stone could be set?” she asked.

The wizard inspected the bracer and nodded, then looked into the box and frowned. “There are no more binding stones, though,” he said. “They’re all set in bracers already.”

Her heart felt as hard and heavy as a rock in her chest. “The second setting isn’t for a binding stone. How many bracers are there?”

Singe’s lips moved as he counted quickly. “Only seventeen.”

Dandra glided past him toward the bodies of the kalashtar. Flies buzzed around her, settling on her skin and tangling in her hair. She brushed them away but they just came back. Holding her breath against the stench, she looked down at the three dead kalashtar. Unlike the human and the dwarf, they wore no chains. Dah’mir’s power would have held them captive.

Just as she had expected, all three wore one of Dah’mir’s bracers-and the second setting on each had been filled with a psicrystal. Each of the three bracers was different, however. The one fastened around the arm of the most decayed body was the crudest, the one worn by the slightly-less decayed corpse a little more refined. The bracer worn by the body that was only emaciated was identical to the bracer that Singe held. Hanamelk had said that three kalashtar were missing from Fan Adar, unaccounted for among the victims of the killing song but presumed dead under its influence.

These three deaths couldn’t be blamed on Virikhad, though. Just as he had when he’d lured Tetkashtai and the others to the Shadow Marches, Dah’mir had needed subjects for his experiments.

Dandra looked back to Singe. “The bracers must do what Dah’mir’s device did-they change the power of the binding stone so that instead of trapping the mind of a psionic creature, the stone exchanges its mind with the mind of its psicrystal.”

“So Dah’mir failed twice, succeeded on the third try, and had his captive goldsmiths create bracers for the remaining stones, then had them killed when they were done the job.” Singe’s face twisted and he thrust the bracer he held back into the metal box. “Dandra, this means he could start changing kalashtar any time!”

On some level, she heard his dire warning. On some level, it filled her with fear, though also with hope: the stones and the bracers were in their possession now. But at the same time, it didn’t echo within her the way his first words had. If Dah’mir had failed twice, then succeeded on the third try …

She spun back to stare at the third body, the emaciated man wearing a bracer identical to those in the box. Flies swarmed around him just as they swarmed around the decaying bodies, crawling across his eyes and into his nose and in and out of his mouth.

As she watched, his staring eyes slowly blinked. Flies flew up and settled back.

The bracer had worked. He was still alive, kalashtar mind going mad in a psicrystal prison, psicrystal mind helpless in an unfamiliar body. Except for the defiant nature that had enabled her to seize control of Tetkashtai’s body and save herself, that would have been Dandra’s fate beneath the Bonetree mound. The psicrystal in the man before her didn’t have that strength of will. The kalashtar would die, wasting away, mind still trapped-or else go mad and become a servant of the daelkyr.

Anger and loathing burst inside Dandra. She raised her spear to kill the man Dah’mir had left alive-

— and froze as a shout of alarm and running footsteps echoed from above. She whirled to see Ashi, bright sword in hand, scarf torn from her face, burst into the light of the torch Singe had left in the private box above-closely followed by Vennet and the big-toothed hobgoblin she had seen on the lift. As the hobgoblin pressed the hunter, Vennet sprang up onto the rail and screamed, “Master! I bring your enemies to you!”

“Actually, Vennet, I believe the ones that matter brought themselves.” Dah’mir’s oil-smooth voice drifted through the cavern of the arena. Dandra and Singe both spun again. Feathered wings rustled and a solitary heron came swooping out of one of the shadowed access tunnels. Acid green eyes flashed as it settled to perch on the edge of the wall around the ring. “You were right, Dandra. I wouldn’t just leave the binding stones out in the open.”

CHAPTER 16

Natrac squeezed his hand and wrist between the bars of the window on his cell door, and fished for the heavy bolt that held the door closed. The bars were too close together for him to get more than halfway to his elbow through-he’d had them designed that way, of course-but with the right tools, he thought that he might just be able to catch the bolt and maybe tug it open.

Except that he didn’t have the right tools. He had a strip of ripped cloth that had been his sleeve and a makeshift hook that had been part of the mechanism holding his hidden spy hole closed. Tearing the secret compartment apart had been painful, an act of desperation. Getting out of the cell was more important than keeping secrets though.

How long had he wasted trying to scheme a way out? How much time was left before night fell and Biish moved against the kalashtar in Fan Adar? He wasn’t sure. The hobgoblin’s headquarters-his old headquarters-had gotten very quiet after Biish and Vennet had left.

Holding one end of his rag strip tight between thumb and forefinger, Natrac opened his other fingers and released the hook. It dropped, bounced as the unfurling cloth reached its end, then hit metal. Natrac let out his breath. He’d remembered where the bolt was. He eased the hook up, and it caught on the handle of the bolt on the first try. Natrac pulled slowly. The handle turned with the rising hook until it stood upright, and the hook slipped free. A little more jiggling with the hook got it around the side of the handle. A careful tug rewarded him with the sound of sliding metal as the bolt eased out of its socket.

It moved only a painfully short distance before his hand hit a bar and could move no further. Natrac had known that would happen, though. “Olladra guide my fingers,” he whispered. He twisted his hand to bring the rag to the gap between the next pair of bars-then bent his head and groped for the cloth with tongue and teeth. Lords of the Host, he thought, this would be easier with two hands.

He was standing with the rag in his teeth and his hand pulled part way back into the cell when the door of the outer room opened. He jerked reflexively, wrenching his hand through the bars and leaping back to try and draw the rag and hook out of sight. The hook, however, caught on one of the bars. The rag snapped out of his mouth, his teeth clashed together, and a tusk jabbed up into his lip. Natrac stifled a grunt of agony and groped for the rag, but it was too late. On the other side of his cell door, Benti had the hook between her slim fingers. A thin smile curved her lips.

A flick of her wrist could have pulled the rag away and ended his attempt at escape, but she didn’t move. Natrac glared at her. “If you’re waiting for me to reach for it before you pull it away, you’ll be disappointed.” he said. “I’m not going to play that game.”

“You want out badly, don’t you, Natrac?” the half-elf asked. “I suppose I would too. Biish will be back to see you sooner or later.” Her eyes fell on the broken cover of the spy hole, and her lips twitched a little more. “Finding out that he missed that little secret isn’t going to improve his mood.”

Natrac took a step to the side, blocking the compartment from her view. A desperate hope made his heart beat a little faster. Benti wouldn’t have come back if she didn’t want something-and he didn’t think she would be bringing up the possibility of escape if it weren’t a prize she’d at least consider offering.

Maybe she was just dangling hope of freedom in front of him, the way she dangled the rag, but he had to take that chance. He had to get back to the upper city and warn Dandra about what was coming. He looked up, met Benti’s gaze, and thrust his tusks forward defiantly. “Dagga, I want out,” he said. “Not just because of Biish though. If you’re still interested in ‘Lord Storm,’ I’ll tell you what I know-for a price.”

Her lips straightened into a humorless line. “I can guess that price. How do I know I’ll get the truth from you?”

“How do I know you’ll let me go?” He moved closer to the bars, choosing his words carefully. “Do you know what Biish is going to do for Storm? Have you found out about the second part of his plan, the part he wouldn’t discuss in front of you?”

“He’s going to kidnap kalashtar.” Benti said it with the bluntness of someone who cared about no one but herself. Natrac’s stomach turned at the thought that once he had spoken in exactly the same way.

“Do you know why?” he asked.

“Ransom. Blackmail. Maybe Storm wants the kalashtar to use their powers for him. I don’t know.”

“Storm follows a Cult of the Dragon Below,” Natrac said. “He’s working with a dragon-a true dragon-named Dah’mir. They’re going to twist the kalashtar they kidnap into servants of a daelkyr. Do you know what a daelkyr is?”

Benti’s eyes hardened. “Aye. A ghost that orc mothers use to frighten their children.” She pulled back her arm sharply. The rag slithered out between the bars of the window before Natrac could even grab for it. Benti leaned close, her teeth snapping around her words. “Do you think I’m stupid, Natrac? I don’t want to hear folk tales. I want to hear about Storm.”

Anger fell over Natrac. He thrust himself at the cell door, grabbing the bars with his good hand. “Do you think I’m stupid, Benti? Do you think I’d come back to Sharn without a good reason?” He shoved the stump of his wrist up so that Benti was forced to look at the scar-smooth flesh. “Storm did this. His real name is Vennet d’Lyrandar and he’s as crazy as a bat!”

“Vennet?” The harshness of Benti’s face seemed to shift, smoothing out into an expression of curious surprise. “Is he the captain of a Lyrandar ship called Lightning-something?”

Surprise wiped the anger from Natrac’s mind as well. “Lightning on Water,” he said. “You’ve heard of her?”

“She vanished two months ago on her way to Zilargo with … an important passenger on board.” She looked at him sharply. “What do you know about it?”

“I know that she didn’t vanish. Vennet turned her around and sailed to Zarash’ak.” Old instincts tugged at Natrac’s mind in warning, and he took a step back from the bars. There was something different in the set of Benti’s mouth abruptly, an intensity that hadn’t been there before. Her voice was different too, uncaring selfishness replaced by a kind of devotion. “Who are you?” Natrac asked.

“Never mind that,” said Benti. “What about Lightning on Water and Vennet d’Lyrandar?”

The question had the weight of a command. Natrac kept his eyes on Benti, but quickly described what he and the others had learned after freeing Vennet’s crew from Dah’mir’s control in Zarash’ak. How Dah’mir had appeared on Lightning on Water and made some sort of deal with Vennet. How the treacherous captain had slain the ship’s passengers while Dah’mir exerted control over the crew. How the ship had been turned back to Zarash’ak so that Vennet and Dah’mir could travel into the heart of the Shadow Marches-

Benti cut him off. “Where’s Lightning on Water now?”

“Lost somewhere between Vralkek and Sharn. The last time we saw Vennet, he said that he and Dah’mir had destroyed her.” Natrac studied her, then added, “Do you believe me now? That’s only a part of the story. I’d tell you more except-”

“Except you don’t have time.” Benti’s mouth settled into a thin line once more. “I don’t know if I believe you about this daelkyr, but dusk is falling. Biish will be moving against the kalashtar soon.”

Natrac pushed forward. “You’ll let me go?”

She held a hand. “Not so fast.” She looked into his eyes. “What are you going to do?”

He didn’t hesitate in his answer. “Go to Overlook. My friends and I came to Sharn to warn the kalashtar elders about Dah’mir and Vennet. They need to know about Biish’s attack. Maybe they can foil it.”

“Boldrei smile on them if they can,” Benti said. “You understand that I have to stand with Biish? If the kalashtar fall into his hands, I can’t help them.”

“You’re not just a lieutenant with ambitions on taking over her chib’s role, are you?” asked Natrac.

She didn’t answer the question. “You didn’t have my help in this,” she said. “If Biish catches you, I’ll kill you myself before you can open your mouth.” She reached for the door and pulled back the bolt.

Natrac didn’t force the issue. Some things, he knew from long experience, were better left alone. Instead, he said, “Drop the hook and rag. Biish will think I got the bolt open on my own.”

“That wouldn’t have worked.” Benti reached up above the window-and drew a second bolt Natrac hadn’t known was there. Natrac cursed as the door swung open.

“Has Biish changed anything else around here or can I still get out down the back stairs?” he demanded.

“The door’s barred on the inside but not guarded right now. Biish has everyone preparing for the raid.” Benti stepped out of his way and pointed to his knife-hand lying on the table in the outer chamber. “Take that and go. Whatever happens now, you should consider leaving Sharn again.”

Natrac didn’t think he’d ever be happy to strap the knife over his stump, but he grinned to himself as he pulled it on and tightened the straps. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have no intention of staying.” He glanced up at Benti.

But the half-elf was already gone, vanished like a shadow in darkness. Natrac clenched his teeth, tugged the last strap tight, and followed her example. She’d spoken the truth about the lack of guards: the back hallways of Biish’s headquarters were all but empty. Natrac made his way along familiar corridors with ease, ducking back around a corner only once as the big bugbear Dabrak shambled between rooms. A moment later, the rough sound of a blade being sharpened on a spinning grindstone filled the air. Natrac darted down the hall and up to the back door. He got the bar off the door and was through it in an instant, closing it softly behind him.

He would have liked to savor his escape, but the danger wasn’t past yet. The nearest lift to the upper city was several blocks away. He tugged his cowl back up over his head to hide his face-with his sleeve torn away, there was little he could do to hide his knife-hand except hold it close to his body-and started for it, just one desperate ragged figure among the many on the streets of the Malleon’s Gate.

About halfway to the lift, however, he turned a corner and saw something that made him leap back faster than a Thrane kneeling to pray. Teeth clenched hard enough to ache, he peered cautiously back around the corner and into the street he had almost entered.

Biish and Vennet stood on the far side of it, talking to a pair of small goblin pups. Natrac couldn’t hear what the young goblins were saying, but they gestured vigorously and pointed down another street as if giving the men directions. One of the gestures the pups made caught Natrac’s attention in particular: the child drew the ragged collar of his shirt up across the lower part of his face, hiding everything below his eyes as if wearing a mask. Biish growled something at the pups, then spoke to Vennet. “They went this way.”

The half-elf rubbed his hands together in glee. “Right into the spider’s web! Come along! Come along!”

He strode off in the direction the pups had indicated, leaving Biish to catch up to him. The moment they were away down the street and safely out of sight, Natrac stepped out of hiding and went up to the pups before they could scurry away. “You boys following people for Biish?”

The larger-by the height of the hair that stood up on his small skull-of the two pups looked him up and down. “What’s it to you, chib?”

Natrac bent over to put himself closer to their level. “I’ll swap secrets with you, roo. Tell me who you’re following for Biish, and I’ll you how to make some coin off that half-elf shekot he’s with.”

“You tell me first.”

“His name is Vennet d’Lyrandar, and he was the captain of ship called Lightning on Water. His ship was carrying treasure, but he stole the treasure and let the ship sink off Zilargo. You go down to the wharves at Cliffside, find someone important from House Lyrandar, and tell them that you’ve seen him here. They’ll give you a reward.”

The pup squinted at him, obviously trying to decide how much of the story to believe. Natrac kept his expression open and as close to honest as he could manage. The part about treasure was a complete lie, of course, but rumors that Vennet was alive and in Sharn might actually get the pups a reward if they went to Lyrandar. Natrac suspected, though, that they were more likely to take the rumor of a rich stranger in Malleon’s Gate to some criminal in exchange for a cut of the potential robbery. Either way, Vennet was in for a serious inconvenience. Natrac could almost see the visions of gold conjured by the magic word “treasure” shining in the pup’s eyes, and after a moment the goblin nodded.

“Biish hired our gang to follow four chib from the upper city who came down on the Sunder Lane lift,” he said. “A kalashtar woman, a kalashtar man, a human man with blond whiskers, and a human woman with a scarf on her face.” He repeated his gesture of drawing his collar over his face.

“Lords of the Host.” Natrac straightened up sharply and darted down the street after Biish and Vennet, ignoring the proprieties of concluding the deal with pups. He could just see the hobgoblin and the half-elf ahead of him, but he hadn’t gone more than a few paces before he realized where they were headed-and where, if they were following Dandra, Singe, and Ashi, his friends were going too.

The street was Two Boot Way, where the goblin bartender he’d spoken to had seen Vennet. And at the end of Two Boot Way squatted the former arena-his arena-that had been the excuse for the beginnings of his troubles with Biish. And what had Vennet bought from Biish besides a raid on Fan Adar?

A hiding place. And surely an empty arena would make a hiding place even a dragon could feel comfortable in. Natrac slowed his pace, even though the tightness in his belly urged him to go faster. He had Vennet and Biish in sight and they weren’t turning off Two Boot Way.

“Lords of the Host,” Natrac murmured again. What were Dandra and the others doing in Malleon’s Gate? How had they found out where Dah’mir was and who was the kalashtar man that the goblin pup had described? He took a deep breath. The man didn’t matter. The others must have found some new ally. If they were down here and on Dah’mir’s trail, they probably knew what they were doing. He doubted if they knew Vennet and Biish were following them, though. They likely wouldn’t even know who Biish was.

More importantly, if they were in Malleon’s Gate, they couldn’t have any idea of what was about to happen in Overlook. Natrac swallowed.

Up ahead, Biish and Vennet stopped and talked to another goblin pup, then turned down a narrow alley. Natrac’s stride stumbled for a moment, but he kept walking. He knew that alley, and the last time he’d been in Sharn it hadn’t led anywhere but into empty space-but it could get someone very close to the private terrace at the back of the arena. However Singe and Dandra had found Dah’mir, somehow they knew about the terrace entrance.

The situation didn’t feel right at all.

He could see the gates of the arena now, the astounding mural that Bava had created for him. It was the first time he’d laid eyes on it since he’d fled the city for Zarash’ak, and he felt a momentary pleasure in seeing that it had survived the years. Biish might have closed the arena in petty revenge, but the mural still kept it alive.

It hurt him more than he expected to see three of the four gates boarded over, but at least the four pair of doors had been opened. He had his way into the arena-following the route down the alley and through the terrace that the others appeared to have taken would have consumed too much time. He had to get inside and see what was happening.

All he had to do was get past the two hobgoblins standing guard over the doors without raising an alarm. He could probably take them but not without a fight. He needed to use his brain instead of his blade. Natrac drew a breath and marched along Two Boot Way, past the alley, and straight up to the guards. He made no effort to disguise his approach, and the guards looked up from their cards to watch him with curious indifference.

He stopped just short of them. “Biish sent me,” he said. “I’m taking over for you. He needs you on the raid.”

That got their attention, but they were good hobgoblins and knew their duty. Both studied him with suspicion, reminding Natrac of the goblin pup, before one grunted, “I don’t know you. You’re not one of Biish’s.”

“I used to be,” Natrac told him. “Before your time. Biish called me up. I can watch things here, but he needs younger, stronger men for the raid.”

The other guard laughed. “He’s come to his senses. This place and Lord Storm don’t need more than an old, one-handed orc to guard them!”

He started to gather up the cards, but the first hobgoblin continued to study Natrac until his comrade gave him a hard poke. “You want to stay here when we could be raiding?”

The first hobgoblin bared his teeth at him, then turned his head and spat on the ground at Natrac’s feet. “Ban,” he said, rising. “But I’m checking this with Biish. If you’re lying …”

“You can come back and gut me,” said Natrac. “It’s a deal. I’ll be waiting for you.” He seated himself by the guards’ small fire and reached for one of the rats they had roasting.

The belligerent guard snatched them away from him. “Get your own.” Natrac shrugged and sat back. Both guards went trotting off along Two Boot Way.

As soon as they were well on their way, Natrac heaved himself back to his feet, opened the gates, and slipped into the halls of the arena. He paused for a moment to take stock of the arena’s condition. Dark. Damp. Unused. Silent when it should have been filled with the roar of a crowd. He touched his hand to the nearest wall. “It was a different time for both of us, old girl,” he whispered.

There was a stink in the air that went far beyond the mould of abandonment, however. Natrac hesitated for a moment, then turned left and headed around the outer ring corridor until he reached a plain door with a simple sign that read Management only. He’d left the door locked the last time he’d used it, but someone had bashed it in a long time ago. He squeezed through the gap, trying not to disturb the rusty hinges, and climbed quickly up the stairs beyond. He was almost at the top when a shout, echoing through the open space of the arena, rolled down from above.

“Master! I bring your enemies to you!”

It was Vennet-and almost instantly, Dah’mir replied, “Actually, Vennet, I believe the ones that matter brought themselves.”

Natrac dropped to his knees and scuttled up the last few stairs on his hand and knees, hobbling like a three-legged dog into what had once been the arena manager’s box. How many fights and spectacles had he watched from the box in his younger days? Hundreds at least. As he peered cautiously over the rail of the box, though, the scene on the sands below left him colder and more frightened than any other he could recall.

Singe and Dandra in the ring, surrounded by five rotting bodies. Vennet standing on the rail of the private box while Biish fought Ashi just beside him. Dah’mir in his heron form, settling down to perch on the arena wall. “You were right, Dandra,” he said. “I wouldn’t just leave the binding stones out in the open.”

For an instant, the scene seemed frozen, Dandra and Singe gripped by what must have been the same horror that Natrac felt, Vennet breathing hard in exalted triumph, Biish staring in surprise at the talking heron that the half-elf addressed as “Master.” Only Ashi seemed to hold her wits. The hunter seized the moment of Biish’s distraction to spin away from him and leap over the edge of the private box into the tiers of public seats below. The old wood of the benches cracked and splintered under her feet, but she moved as lightly as a halfling, bounding from bench to bench in an effort to join the others.

The frozen scene shattered with her movement. In a swift action, Singe snatched up a metal box from a work table sitting on the sands. “Try anything, Dah’mir,” he shouted, “and I’ll smash your bloody stones!”

Dah’mir merely ruffled his feathers and said like a scolding father, “Put that down.”

The power of his presence wasn’t so great in heron form as it was in dragon form, but it was still strong enough that even Natrac felt the edge of the command. Dah’mir’s full attention was focused on Singe, however, and Natrac saw only the briefest hint of struggle flash across the wizard’s face before his features relaxed and he lowered the box.

But then Dandra was beside him, her dark eyes clear and determined, and Natrac realized Ashi must have used her dragonmark to protect her. He was too far away to hear the droning chorus as Dandra drew on her power of psionic fire, but abruptly a brilliant white flame blazed in her cupped hand. “That trick isn’t going to work on me,” she said. “Let us go, or I melt these abominations!”

Dah’mir stiffened in the face of a real threat, but neither his heron’s face nor his voice betrayed any emotion. “If I let you go, you’ll just destroy them anyway.”

“Maybe you should have stayed closer to them, then,” Dandra said between clenched teeth. She jerked her head at Singe. “Release him.”

Farther along the arena, Ashi dropped over the wall onto the sand, sword at the ready, and walked warily toward the others. Hope rose in Natrac. Was it possible that they could actually get away from Dah’mir with the binding stones? One of the gates onto the arena floor stood open. He was fairly certain that Dandra would probably lead Singe and Ashi out that way, but those gates led into the fighters’ tunnels beneath the arena. They’d need a guide if they were going to find their way out of the arena quickly or they’d risk being trapped.

The manager’s box, however, had two stairs: one to the outer corridor of the arena at ground level, the other leading down into the fighters’ tunnels. That easy double access was precisely one of the reasons he’d made his way to the box. He could be down in the tunnels to intercept Dandra and the others in only moments. No one knew his arena as well as he did! He eased away from the rail, climbed to his feet, and started to turn for the second set of stairs-then stopped dead as a rasping voice cried, “No!”

On the arena floor, the skinniest and least decayed of the five corpses sat up suddenly and Natrac realized with shock that he wasn’t looking at a body, but a living man on the very verge of death. Everyone else in the arena-even Dah’mir-seemed stunned. The emaciated man opened his mouth and another rasping cry emerged. “Dah’mir will succeed in Sharn!”

His arm snapped up and pointed at Dandra. Silver-white light flared and seemed to coalesce around her in a swirling vortex. The air shivered and twisted. Dandra screamed as her body shivered and twisted along with it, then the vortex cracked and vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.

But not before there was a second crack, and Dandra was flung out of thin air halfway across the arena to stagger into Ashi’s path. The emaciated man collapsed again like rag doll with its stuffing pulled out. Dandra’s scream seemed to pierce Dah’mir’s power over Singe. The wizard shook his head and whirled around to stare at her. “Dandra!” he cried, and leaped for her. The box he had held tumbled to the ground. There was a yelp of distress from Vennet-but not from Dah’mir. The heron took to the air with beating wings and flew straight for the open gate, form swelling in mid-air.

Feathers became scales. Hind legs grew and forelegs emerged. A beak became a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. A soft crest became a horny frill. Dah’mir had taken to the air as a heron, but he landed as a dragon. He slammed his mighty body against the open gate, and the stonework collapsed with a dull rumble, cutting off escape from the arena.

Or at least that means of escape. Natrac clenched his jaw, threw himself at the stairs to the tunnels, and prayed that he still knew his arena as well as he thought he did.

“If I let you go, you’ll just destroy them anyway.”

Dandra glared at him and clenched her teeth, the chorus of whitefire throbbing in the air. Dah’mir was right. She’d rather have turned her power against the binding stones instead of using them as bargaining chips. If they could get away from Dah’mir, maybe she would-but they had to get away first. How stupid had she been to assume the arena was deserted! They should have left while they had a chance.

She thrust back her fear and lifted her chin. “Maybe you should have stayed closer to them, then,” she said. They still had a chance, thanks to Singe’s quick thinking. There was an open gate nearby. She didn’t dare turn around to check Ashi’s escape from Vennet, but her crashing progress through the benches was getting closer. They wouldn’t get far with Singe still enthralled by Dah’mir’s command. She nodded at the wizard. “Release him.”

The heron’s eyes narrowed as if Dah’mir were weighing his options. Dandra drew breath through her teeth. She couldn’t allow him time to think. She met Dah’mir’s eyes boldly as a thought sent the white flame burning in her palm blazing high.

“No!” rasped a new voice.

She turned as the kalashtar who wore the final version of Dah’mir’s vile bracers, sat up, flies swarming around him. Dandra’s heart leaped into her throat, and a horrid thought forced its way into her mind: the kalashtar’s spirit had found strength in madness. Just as Medala had, he had fought his way back to control of his body, murdering the piece of himself that had been his psicrystal in the process. Dah’mir had succeeded in creating another servant for the Master of Silence.

Then the kalashtar spoke again, and she knew she was wrong. Dah’mir hadn’t created another servant. Someone else had taken residence in the kalashtar’s mindless body. More flies burst from the man’s mouth as he cried out, “Dah’mir will succeed in Sharn!”

She knew the words. She knew the madness. It was Virikhad.

Even as she thought the name, though, the man’s arm came up and pointed at her. Silver-white light flared bright in her vision. It felt as though she were being torn apart, her body being squeezed through the fabric of space like mortar between bricks. It was as if she were taking the long step, but against her will. She screamed, and her scream seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, squeezed out as well, until both she and it had been pressed so thin that not even the fabric of space could hold them. The silver-white light vanished, and she staggered free of Virikhad’s power halfway across the arena from where she had been standing.

Strong hands grabbed her, and Ashi’s voice said, “I have you!” From somewhere else, Singe called her name. She looked up, saw first the kalashtar that Virikhad had seized, sprawled motionless once more, then Singe, charging across the arena floor.

And then the gray metal box that held the binding stones, lying abandoned on the sand.

“No,” she choked, fighting to put strength in her voice. “No! The stones!”

The warning came too late. Dah’mir was already in the air, his thin black heron form growing larger as he moved. At the same moment that Singe threw himself across the sand to embrace her, the dragon landed and threw himself against the open gate.

The impact of his body smashed the stonework. The gate collapsed, taking the last of the optimism Dandra had felt only moments before down with it. Dah’mir turned to stare at them. At her.

A thin squeaking whine filled the silence that followed the rumble of falling stones. Up in the private box, the big hobgoblin who had fought Ashi stood stiff and pale, his eyes fixed on Dah’mir, his toothy mouth hanging open in stunned panic at the sight of the dragon. Vennet turned around and slapped him. “Be quiet, Biish!”

Ashi put herself and the bright sword of her ancestor between Dandra and Dah’mir. Singe’s arm slipped from Dandra’s waist, and his hand clasped hers as he turned to face Dah’mir as well. The burning acid-green orbs of the dragon’s eyes were fixed entirely on Dandra, however. His muzzle peeled back from his massive teeth and he spoke.

“How did you do it?”

The question was so utterly unexpected that she could only look back at Dah’mir in stunned silence. Nor did Singe or Ashi have any answer. The wizard’s grip on her hand tightened. The hunter just eased back at little closer to her. But Dah’mir appeared to take their shock for defiance. His voice rose in a roar so loud that the arena shook and the dust rising from the collapsed gate shivered as if the air had been slapped. “How did you do it? How did you rouse my master’s servant?”

He took a step to the side, then whirled and paced the other way, the great blue-black Khyber shard set in his chest and the smaller red Eberron shards set along his forelegs flashing as he moved. His body turned and flowed like a cat’s, but his eyes never left Dandra’s. “It isn’t possible!” he screamed. “It shouldn’t be possible. Not now. Not here. How did you do it?”

He meant the kalashtar Virikhad had seized control of, Dandra realized. He’d assumed the same thing she had at first-that the interaction of the binding stone and the psicrystal had done its work, that a new servant for the Master of Silence had been born.

And he still believed it. Singe’s guess had been right. Dah’mir knew nothing of Virikhad’s survival. But why should he be surprised at the apparent success of his device?

Whatever the reason, at least he hadn’t pounced on them. They were still alive-for now. Dandra pulled her hand out of Singe’s grasp and stepped forward, pushing in front of Ashi to face Dah’mir. “Let Singe and Ashi go and I’ll tell you.”

Singe started to protest. Dandra thrust a hand at him, gesturing him to silence. Dah’mir stopped pacing. “You,” he said, “are persistent.”

He drew the word out into a hiss, then bit it off savagely. He stepped toward her and the others. “You continue to bargain when you have nothing to bargain with. Do you think that because you’ve found a way to resist me, you’re now my equal?” His leathery wings rattled against his sides. “I have many questions, Dandra. And you-or Singe or Ashi-will answer them. Unconditionally.”

The talons of his forelegs tensed and dug through the sand with a slow, coarse grinding. Dandra glanced down-and Dah’mir lunged, his teeth clashing together. He was still several paces away from her, but Dandra flinched back in spite of herself. Behind her, a gasp of shock escaped Ashi. Dah’mir lifted his head and looked down on them with a mocking smile. A wave of anger burst in Dandra’s belly.

“The kalashtar elders know about you!” she shouted at the dragon. “They know what you plan to do.”

“Lies!” came a scream from above. Vennet looked like he was ready to throw himself over the edge of the private box. “Master, we just came from Overlook! The kalashtar expect nothing.”

“Silence, Vennet!” Dah’mir roared without looking around at him. “Get down here and take charge of the box! Check the bracers.” His eyes flashed as he looked back to Dandra, Singe, and Ashi. “Persistence will only carry you so far. Any damage you’ve done-”

His threat broke off as a new sound, a sudden rattle of chains, filled the air. Dah’mir’s gaze went past Dandra. She turned, as well.

A short distance away, closer to Dandra and the others than to Dah’mir, the floor of the arena seemed to collapse. The sand that covered it went sliding, some of it puffing up in a cloud of reeking dust. A head poked up through the hole.

Natrac’s head. “Here!” the half-orc yelled. “Run!”

The screech that erupted from Dah’mir made his previous roar sound like a song, but Dandra hardly heard it. Never mind how Natrac had come to be under the arena floor-if they ran, Dah’mir would be on them before they could reach safety.

But with a distraction, the others might make it. She grabbed Ashi and shoved her toward Natrac. “Go!” she ordered, then pushed off from the ground and, with a thought, sent herself skimming across the sand with all the focused power of her will.

Right past Dah’mir. Right toward the gray metal box lying on the arena floor.

She caught a glimpse of Dah’mir’s startled expression as she darted by him, saw his head twitch from his fleeing captives to her, heard his screech change to a snarl as he realized exactly what she was racing for. Sand slithered and a huge shadow flashed over head like a bolt of darkness. Dah’mir’s lithe form struck the ground with such force that the entire arena floor shook. His feet dug into the sand, scattering work table and corpses, and he twisted around to stand protectively over the precious box, forelegs spread wide, head low, teeth bared, all of his furious attention on her.

Her heart racing, Dandra met his blazing eyes-and pushed with her mind at the space around her, thrusting herself through it, taking the long step. In less than instant, she was twenty paces away from the dragon and dropping down through the hole in the arena floor.

Which was, she realized, a ramp down into a passage running beneath the arena. A hand-Singe’s-grabbed her and pulled her away into darkness. Natrac’s voice hissed beneath Dah’mir’s frustrated roar from above. “This way!”

The dim light of the arena didn’t penetrate far from the ramp and Dandra felt rather than saw stone walls rush past her as she was pulled along. A thunderous crash and a shaking of the walls marked Dah’mir’s pounce at the ramp. Wood cracked. New light pierced the gloom as he tore the hole wider.

Ahead of her, Singe stopped so suddenly she ran into him, and Natrac spoke again. “Ashi, help me!” Metal grated against stone just as the faint light from behind them dimmed sharply. Another roar echoed, deafening within the tunnels. Dandra twisted around and saw acid-green eyes smolder in the shadows. Dah’mir had thrust his head down the ramp. White teeth flashed as he opened his mouth and drew a deep breath.

The green of his eyes wasn’t the only thing acidic about the dragon. Dandra had seen the effects of his corrosive venom on the battlefield before the Bonetree mound. Trapped in the passage, they were easy targets. “Natrac!” she shouted.

“Down!” said the half-orc, and it felt as if they all moved at once, tumbling through an unseen hole into an even deeper darkness that reeked of filth.

There was no rain of venom, but Dah’mir’s final roar of fury followed them.

Events on the floor of the arena unfolded too quickly for Vennet to react. The sudden opening of the ramp beneath the sands, Singe and Ashi’s flight, Dandra’s break for the box containing the precious bracers, Dah’mir’s leap to intercept her-and Dandra’s reappearance beside the ramp in the blink of an eye. All he could do was thrust himself against the rail of the box and scream down, “No! No! Storm at dawn, no!”

Dah’mir’s second leap-to the gaping hole of the ramp-sent such a shudder through the structure of the arena that Vennet felt it in the rail beneath his hands. His roars and the splintering of the arena floor as he ripped at it brought the voices of the wind whipping around Vennet’s ears.

They must not escape! If they escape, your reward goes with them. They mock you, Vennet! They mock you!

“They won’t escape!” He pounded his hands against the rail. “Kill them, Dah’mir! Kill them!”

But the dragon extracted his head and neck from the hole in the floor with a slow dignity. His muzzle was wrinkled. “They’re in the sewers,” he said.

“Let me go after them!”

“There is no point. There are too many places for them to go or to hide.”

“Then let me send the wind!” Vennet’s chest felt hollow with desperation. “The wind will find them wherever they go. By the powers of Khyber, I’ll turn the very stink of the sewers against them!”

“Be silent!” Dah’mir’s voice was like a crack of thunder. Even the voices of the air fell silent. Vennet’s arms fell to his side. Dandra, Singe, and Ashi might have escaped, but at least they hadn’t captured the box. And, he reminded himself, there was still the unconscious kalashtar lying on the terrace outside the arena. He had a partial prize to present Dah’mir at least.

But the dragon didn’t seem as angry as Vennet might have expected. Dah’mir settled back on his haunches, his great eyes thoughtful. “That was Natrac that aided them.”

New rage seethed in Vennet. “Natrac!”

And behind him, Biish’s ears flicked, and he spoke coherent words for the first time since Dah’mir had revealed his majestic true form. “Natrac?” he asked. His lips twitched. “But that’s not possible.”

Vennet turned on him. “You know Natrac? How?”

The hobgoblin glanced at Dah’mir. “Mazo,” he said finally. “He … he used to own this arena, until I ran him out of Sharn and took over his gang. I found out he was back in Sharn last night. I tracked him down and took him prisoner. He should still be in his cell at my headquarters.”

A rumble rolled out of Dah’mir’s throat. “Obviously, he escaped.” His huge eyes narrowed. “How did he know to come here?”

Biish shook his head, his ears lying back flat against his head, and Vennet realized just how pathetic and frightened he looked. “Maybe Natrac overheard something,” the half-elf suggested.

Biish’s eyes snapped to him. “Impossible!”

“Yet he was here. And if he knew to come here, perhaps he overheard something more. And if he knows more than he should, then Dandra and Singe will soon know it too.” Dah’mir rose and stretched, wings sweeping out. “Biish! Are your people ready to move?”

The hobgoblin flinched back at the demand. “Mazo, lhesh!”

“Then we strike before there can be any interference,” said Dah’mir. He bared his teeth. “We strike now.”

CHAPTER 17

The door had apparently been carved into the wall of the sewer by some enterprising goblin. It was goblin height and goblin width and, once Ashi had forced it open with repeated kicks against the old wood, a tight squeeze for any of them to wriggle through. A heavy curtain, powdery with mold, dragged against Singe as he pushed himself through the doorway and into the cellar beyond. He cursed between his teeth and tore the rotten fabric away to allow the others an easier passage. The curtain and the cellar were both musty and foul, but they smelled like a temple compared to the wet stink of the sewers or the stench of the decaying bodies back in the arena.

“Have a good sniff when a battle’s over,” Robrand d’Deneith had told him more than once, “and remember that no matter how bad things smell, you’re still breathing.” Singe wrinkled his nose, brushed the thick dust from the curtain off his shirt, and raised one hand. The magical light that glowed from his ring-he’d cast the cantrip when the footing in the sewers had become too treacherous for them to depend solely on Natrac’s darkvision for guidance-shone on a room long abandoned to dampness and filth. The outline of a trapdoor showed among the low beams of the ceiling. There was no ladder, but it didn’t look like it would be difficult to haul themselves up through the trapdoor.

As Natrac squirmed through the small doorway, Singe bent down and helped the half-orc to his feet. “I wouldn’t have expected the blustering merchant I met in Yrlag to turn out to be a notorious ganglord from Sharn.”

“Former ganglord,” Natrac grunted. “That ended when Biish decided he wanted to start building the Longtooth into something to be reckoned with, Keeper take the bastard. This route through the sewers saved my life once before. We’re well across Malleon’s Gate now.” He looked around. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in this room too. Kuv, I feel stupid for letting Biish get his hands on me. I should have told you about my past before this. I was putting all of us at risk.”

“What if you had told us everything?” Singe asked him. “We wouldn’t have let you come down to Malleon’s Gate alone. If Biish hadn’t gotten his hands on you, you wouldn’t have found out what he and Vennet were up to.”

“And,” added Dandra grimly as she drew herself through the door, “you would have been with us when Virikhad tried to lure us into Dah’mir’s claws. We would all be trapped.” She stood up, pressed her hands together, and bent her head over them in a gesture of thanks. “Bless your secrets, Natrac. Virikhad had the rest of us off balance trying to understand the killing song.”

The half-orc grimaced, his lip stretching tight against his tusks. “Where do you think Virikhad is now?”

Dandra shook her head. “He could be anywhere. It sounds like he knows Dah’mir’s plans. He’s probably moved on to another host so he can make sure Biish’s raid succeeds and Dah’mir captures the seventeen kalashtar he needs.”

“Seventeen kalashtar with psicrystals to wear seventeen bracers with binding stones,” said Singe. With what they had found in the arena and what Natrac had heard from his cell, it hadn’t taken much to guess what had been on the list of targets Vennet had given Biish. The month Dah’mir had been in Sharn had certainly been enough time to gather the information. If his herons had watched Fan Adar for them, the birds might have watched for kalashtar carrying psicrystals too. Or maybe Dah’mir and Vennet had spied on Fan Adar themselves. How the dragon had built the list didn’t matter-it was a curiosity, much as the half-elf Benti’s role in the raid was a curiosity. Singe had tried to reason out why Vennet and Dah’mir should need another bearer of the Mark of Storm and come up with nothing. For the moment, the important thing was that list and the danger to the kalashtar.

They still had a chance to disrupt Dah’mir’s plans. The kalashtar elders would also know who in Fan Adar possessed psicrystals, and Dah’mir’s potential victims could still be hidden or scattered.

If they could get back to Overlook in time to warn them.

There was still one thing that needed to be discussed before they left their cellar refuge, however. Singe turned around to face Ashi. The hunter had slipped through the goblin-sized door with lithe ease without saying anything. In fact, she’d barely spoken at all during their flight through the sewers. Now she crouched beside the door, a haunted look on her dragonmark patterned face, her mouth pressed closed so tightly the flesh was pale around the bone hoops that pierced her lower lip. Singe squatted down in front of her.

“You’re thinking of Moon, aren’t you?” he said.

The hunter’s eyes flicked up and focused on him. After a moment, she nodded and her lips parted. “I left him behind, Singe. I was supposed to watch over him and I left him behind. Vennet and Biish came over the wall and onto the terrace so suddenly all I could do was defend myself. I had to choose between protecting Moon and trying to warn you.”

Singe spread his hands, sending light and shadows dancing around the room. “I think you made the right choice. If you’d tried to carry Moon with you, you would have been fighting with a dead weight over your shoulder. If you’d tried to stay, either Vennet or Biish would probably have slipped past you and come after us.”

“But they came anyway. Now Moon is probably either dead or Dah’mir’s prisoner.” Ashi looked down at her sword, held across her hands-the bright honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals, a relic of the grandfather who had fallen prey to Dah’mir and the Bonetree clan. “I carry the Siberys Mark of Sentinel,” she said. “I should have stayed. I should have defended him.”

“No,” Singe said firmly. “You shouldn’t have. You couldn’t have. You need to be realistic, Ashi. Think-House Deneith doesn’t defend everyone. The lords of Deneith know it’s impossible.”

A harsh look crossed Ashi’s face. “The lords of Deneith sell their protection.”

Singe grimaced. “Not all of them. You still have a lot to learn about Deneith. For every heir of Deneith like Mithas, there’s someone good, someone who thinks of others before they think of themselves. Someone who does try to defend other people when they can.”

“Someone like Robrand used to be?”

That stung. Singe bit his tongue-and nodded reluctantly. “Like Robrand used to be.” He sighed. “Ashi, what I’m saying is that you can’t blame yourself for everyone that falls. It’s just not possible. You have to look at the greater good. If you’d tried to defend Moon, what would have happened to Dandra and I?”

“You could have defended yourselves.”

“All right then, what would have happened to you? And if you died, what would have happened to Dandra?”

Her only answer was to press her lips tight together again. Singe reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “You’ll learn, Ashi. Having that kind of responsibility isn’t easy. You don’t have to forget about Moon, but you have to face that there’s nothing you can do for him now. There are kalashtar up in Fan Adar who are going to be in a lot of trouble very soon. You can’t help them if you’re caught up on one person you couldn’t defend.” He squeezed her shoulder then stood up. “You have to let him go for now.”

Ashi looked up at him, her eyes intense. “This is the second time you’ve talked me into your point of view, Singe. The first time, you convinced me of Dah’mir’s evil and showed me I had the strength to turn my back on the Bonetree clan. I’m starting to think that it’s not your spells or your sword that make you dangerous.” She smiled wryly and stood. “Let’s make sure I didn’t leave Moon behind for nothing.”

She moved past him and went to stand under the trapdoor in the ceiling, stretching up her arms to test its strength. Dandra stepped in to Singe’s side. “You can make a persuasive argument when you want to.”

He shrugged. “My mother wanted me to be a wine trader. My professors at Wynarn University told me I could have become a lecturer.”

“I can’t see you as a wine trader or a lecturer.”

“Neither can I.” Singe smiled. “On the other hand, wine traders and lecturers don’t generally have to worry about dragons.”

The building into which the sewer door opened was very nearly a ruin. The few goblins that Singe spotted as they made their way out to the street stayed far back in the shadows, keeping wary eyes on the intruders from below. A few drew back even further as they saw the dragonmark on Ashi’s face. The hunter’s scarf was long gone and there didn’t seem to be much point in trying to conceal the mark now. She left it exposed, and if respect for or fear of the mark sped their passage even a little, thought Singe, so much the better.

He caught more than one of the goblins covering their noses. If the little creatures found the smell bad, the stink of the sewers that clung to them must have been truly foul. Before they passed out into the street, he cast a simple cantrip that stripped the filth and stench from their clothes. It was disconcerting to cast the magic-there was every chance they would be facing Biish’s gang as well as Dah’mir and Vennet very soon, and he wanted every possible spell at his disposal for the fight-but they didn’t need to attract any more attention than they had to on their way out of Malleon’s Gate. Any delay could cost them on the race back to Overlook.

The delay that waited for them at the nearest lift, however, couldn’t have been avoided no matter how good they smelled. In fact, smelling really bad might have helped them more. Singe stopped on the edge of the festive crowd that plugged the street before the lift and cursed, remembering what they had seen on their ride down to Malleon’s Gate. “Thronehold! Bloody Thronehold! Everyone’s trying to get to the upper city to see the display!”

Mention of the celebration brought a cheer from the nearest celebrants and tankards and wineskins were raised in a drunken toast. Natrac leaned closer to Singe and shouted above the noise. “Biish probably chose tonight for the raid deliberately! The upperr city will be so chaotic that the Sharn Watch won’t be able to respond quickly to the raid.”

“Won’t that make it more difficult for him to find his targets in Fan Adar?” asked Ashi.

Dandra scowled. “No. Remember how few banners there were in Fan Adar? The kalashtar don’t pay much attention to Thronehold. Fan Adar will probably be the quietest neighborhood in the upper city tonight.” She looked at Singe. “I’d bet choosing the night of Thronehold for the raid was Dah’mir’s plan more than it was Biish’s.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you,” Singe said. He stared at the crowd. Goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, some half-orcs, and even a few mangy-looking shifters were packed into the street almost ten ranks deep. It would take at least two runs of the lift to clear them, and more people were arriving all the time. Trying to force their way through the crowd would be bad idea-he saw a hobgoblin try to wade forward only to be met with outraged curses and a flurry of blows that sent him staggering back. There didn’t seem to be much point in trying another lift. He suspected that every lift in the district, probably every lift in Sharn, was jammed with crowds.

The crowds might slow Biish’s people too, but if Biish-or more likely Dah’mir as Dandra had suggested-had planned the raid around Thronehold, he’d likely have planned for the crowds as well. He spun around, eyes raking the streets, searching for inspiration. There had to be a way to get to the upper city quickly …

His gaze settled on a large skycoach as it passed overhead, draped with the colorful banners of Thronehold and stuffed full with goblin revelers. It was old, worn, and flew with all the grace of a wounded dragonhawk, but it was flying. Dandra looked up as well. She must have guessed what he was thinking because she smiled grimly. “There were other skycoaches earlier,” she said. “Smaller ones. Faster ones.”

“That’s what we need.” There were a few more skycoaches in the air, all heading toward the gaps that gave way to open sky. They had to find one on the ground-if there were any left. He turned to Natrac. “Where do you think we’d find a skycoach?”

The half-orc shook his head. “They don’t usually come to Malleon’s Gate. Anyone here tonight must be wringing the rind-”

“They’d still need a place to pick up passengers.” Singe grabbed Natrac and turned him around to face another wallowing vessel as it lifted clear of the buildings around them. “There! Where’s that one coming from?”

Natrac squinted. “Reaver’s Square.” He thrust out his tusks and started down a sidestreet at a trot, moving against the current of people heading for the lift. Singe stayed right behind him with Ashi and Dandra following.

Reaver’s Square was an unprepossessing expanse of stone utterly empty of buildings or any features at all. There were hardly even any people left in the square, as if the last of the large skycoaches had taken them all with it. Those people who were in the square seemed to be on their way to someplace else, likely a lift. That all of them rushed right past the last skycoach still hovering in the square, ignoring the piping calls in Goblin that Singe presumed were invitations to hire the coach, didn’t put any confidence into his heart. They didn’t have much choice, though. From across the square, the coach looked right enough, if some what smaller and distinctly less well maintained than the one he and Ashi had taken to Deathsgate. Even on closer approach there didn’t seem to be anything materially wrong with it.

Then he saw the source of the piping voice-and the source of the piping voice, a goblin standing on a bench in the stern of the coach, saw him. Dark eyes in an orange-red face lit up. “Masters and mistresses! You must be lost. Hire Rhazala’s skycoach, and you’ll be in the sky before the show starts!”

There wasn’t a chance, Singe was certain, that the coach belonged to her. At least not legally. If she sat down on the bench, he suspected that her short legs wouldn’t reach the floor. If she climbed out of the coach, he doubted that she would be able to climb back in. She looked like a child standing on the driver’s seat of a conventional carriage. In fact, he couldn’t be certain that she wasn’t a child. Her impish face and the oversized robes that swathed her small body gave the impression that if she was an adult, it was only by a matter of days. He glanced at Dandra.

She lifted her hands and shrugged. The canny little goblin-Rhazala, presumably-must have caught either their indecision or their desperation because her voice became wheedling. “No other coaches left,” she said. “Don’t want to wait for a lift, do you? So slow. So many stops on the way up. The Thronehold show will be over before you see it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or maybe the show isn’t what matters to you. Wherever you’re going, I can get you there, quick quick.”

Singe grimaced. She might not have gotten the details right, but she had the basics of their situation pegged. He stepped up to the coach. “You can fly this thing, can’t you?” he asked.

Rhazala put on an offended look. “For years I’ve flown it! Won races! My regular passengers took tickets on a party yacht to watch the show or I wouldn’t be down here now-”

“It’s stolen,” he said bluntly. “You don’t have regular passengers. I don’t care. Just tell me if you can fly it.”

She dropped her protestations. “I flew it here, didn’t it?”

That, at least, had the ring of truth. “We need to go to Overlook, fast as you can. How much?”

Rhazala’s eyes darted among them. “A gold galifar apiece,” she said. His eyebrows rose. She shrugged. “Wait for a lift.”

“Twelve moons, you are a thief.”

He found the coins, though, and dropped them into her small hand. They vanished into her robe. “In in!” she cried. “Faster you’re aboard, faster you’re in Overlook!”

The coach rocked as first Singe, then Ashi and Natrac, climbed over the edge and sat. Only Dandra barely disturbed it, vaulting lightly over the side and settling down next to Singe. “I don’t feel good about this,” she said.

“You’d feel less good waiting, wouldn’t you?”

“Hold on!” said Rhazala. Singe heard her robes rustle-then the skycoach shot upward with an abruptness that took his breath away. His hands clamped onto the coach’s side as the vessel angled up and out of the square, nearly clipping the roof of one of the buildings lining it. In only moments, they were above Malleon’s Gate and still climbing, heading for a gap between the great towers.

And straight toward one of the lumbering, banner-draped skycoaches they had seen earlier. “Rhazala!” Singe shouted. The goblin’s reply was muffled and their coach didn’t change course. Singe twisted around.

In order to reach the rudder-like rod that steered the coach, Rhazala had to sit backward on the bench. The only way she could have seen where they were going was to turn and look over her shoulder. Unfortunately, the wind of their passage had blown the folds of her robe over her face. She couldn’t see anything, and her attempts to claw the fabric away were utterly unsuccessful. Singe freed one hand, reached back, and snatched the billowing robe clear of Rhazala’s face. The goblin’s dark eyes went wide as she saw what was ahead of them. She pulled on the steering rod, and their coach pitched up at an angle that brought a shout from Natrac, a laugh from Ashi, and frightened screams from the goblins crowding the other coach as they passed overhead.

A moment later they emerged into the canyon between the towers, already almost at the height of the middle city. The coach slowed and dropped back to a more normal pitch, assuming a slightly less frantic pace of ascent. Rhazala grinned at Singe. “Quick quick!” she said brightly.

Her orange skin, however, had paled to a kind of faded gold color, and her fingers were tight around the steering rod. Singe let go of the fabric of her robe and turned around to face the front of the coach and to look at the others. Ashi was flushed. Natrac was pale. Dandra was staring up at the sky overhead.

“Singe, look,” she said, and he turned his face to the sky as well.

Full night had fallen. Stars speckled the darkness along with the half-turned faces of the orange moon Olarune and the silver-gray moon Eyre, giving the night a pale glow against which the towers of Sharn stood out in silhouette. Stars and moons were far from the only things in the sky, however. The night was filled with skycoaches lit by lanterns and airships lit by the fire or moonglow of their elemental rings. Some of the vessels flitted about, but many just floated in place as those aboard awaited the beginning of the Thronehold spectacle. As their coach rose higher and the heights of the city came into view, even more lights appeared. Every tower in Sharn, every bridge, every open courtyard shone with torches and lanterns.

“Rhazala, do you know when the spectacle is supposed to start?” Singe called over his shoulder.

“When the crescent of Aryth rises,” said the goblin. “Soon. Now close your mouth-I’m flying!” She turned the coach in a ragged arc and they began flying among the towers.

Dandra’s hand sought out his. “Do you think we’ll make it in time?”

“If we didn’t spend too long in the sewers, and if we’re right about Dah’mir using Thronehold as a cover for the raid,” Singe told her. “If I were him, I’d wait until the spectacle had actually started before I made my move.” He gave Dandra’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll make it. We’ll stop him.”

The coach jerked and swerved suddenly as Rhazala tried to slow down at the same time she steered around a tower. Singe had to let go of Dandra’s hand to brace himself. Even Ashi yelped this time. “Sorry!” Rhazala called.

“I hope you weren’t planning on going into the skycoach business permanently!” said Singe, glancing back at her.

“Only for tonight.” Rhazala’s face was intense and possibly a little bit frightened. “Not so sure about the rest of tonight. This is Overlook now. Where are you going?”

From the stress in her words, he guessed that she was hoping he’d tell her to set down at the first opportunity. He didn’t give her that satisfaction. “Fan Adar, the kalashtar neighborhood. Do you know it?”

Rhazala’s flat nose wrinkled. “From the ground, yes. From the air, no.”

“It’s there,” said Ashi from the front of the coach. Her voice was grim. “Straight ahead. Where all the herons are circling.”

Singe swung around again. Beneath the moonlight, a dozen black herons swooped through the sky ahead of them. Something had them excited-they moved like cats with wings stalking earthbound prey. A large hulk of a skycoach, just like the ones they’d seen in Malleon’s Gate, drifted nearby, apparently abandoned. “Twelve bloody moons,” Singe hissed. They’d been wrong. He’d been wrong. Dah’mir hadn’t waited. The raid had already begun.

“It was us,” Dandra said tightly. “He probably acted early because we got away in the arena.” She glanced back at Rhazala. “Take us down!”

The goblin sounded alarmed. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know,” said Dandra. She reached over her shoulder and drew her spear from across her back. “Just take us down. We need to get off now!”

“No, wait.” Singe studied the herons. Was Dah’mir among them? He didn’t think so. The dragon would likely be in the thick of the action, not hanging above it like a common bird. “Take us closer.”

Rhazala let out a squeak, but Singe dropped two more gold galifars onto the floor of the coach under her bench. “Don’t ask questions. Just make a pass over the birds.” He looked at Dandra. “We need to see what’s happening down there before we go charging in. We’ll be more effective if we know what we’re doing.”

Dandra’s fingers tightened on her spear, but she nodded. Rhazala glanced at the gold, swallowed, and sent the skycoach gliding forward like a boat on a river. She pulled the steering rod, and they rose slightly, climbing above the herons. The birds seemed to pay them no attention, but then they were hardly the only skycoach in the air-just the only one with passengers more interested in what was below than what was above. Singe found himself holding his breath as he leaned over the edge of the coach and looked down.

Just as Dandra had said, Fan Adar was quiet compared to the other neighborhoods around. Revelers seemed to avoid the kalashtar district. Fan Adar was dark too. Strangely dark. The everbright lanterns that should have lit the streets had been suppressed. Singe had to strain to see through the shadows. Biish’s goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears would have a strategic advantage in the darkness.

But there was no movement in the streets. Except for the wheeling herons, everything seemed peaceful. Singe felt an eerie tension crawl up his spine.

“Maybe we are in time,” whispered Natrac.

“They’re there,” Ashi answered him. Her voice had a raw edge Singe hadn’t heard in weeks-the edge of a barbarian of the Shadow Marches. “Can’t you feel it? This is the moment before the hunt begins.”

Rhazala squeaked out a curse. “Tell me what’s going on-”

She didn’t finish. From somewhere below, a scream of fright echoed into the night before breaking off. An instant later, the herons dropped, screeching, out of the sky to plummet down into the streets. More shouts rose-more screams. A deep howl that must have been a bugbear or maybe even an ogre was followed by shrieks. Light flashed onto the streets as doors and windows were thrown open, but the light only served to make the shadows seem deeper and the shapes that ran through the street stranger and more wild.

“Rond betch, you see?” shouted Ashi. The skycoach rocked as she turned from side to side. “They’re everywhere! They’re trying to panic the kalashtar.”

“That won’t help them for long,” Dandra said. “The kalashtar and the Adaran humans will rally at the Gathering Light and fight back.”

Natrac’s face flushed dark. “But that’s what they’re expecting! Biish said that kalashtar under attack always cluster together at a central location.”

The mention of the hobgoblin’s name made Rhazala flinch. “Biish?” she choked. “You’re going against Biish? Khaari orces’taat! Keep your gold!” The coach lurched to a halt and began to turn as she pulled at the steering rod.

Natrac twisted around with a roar that rocked Singe back on his seat. “Hold that rod steady! Kuv dagga, we’re going against Biish! This time the Biter has sunk his teeth into something too big for him. If they’re still telling stories about Natrac Graywall, you’d better start remembering them because you’ve got a front row seat for his return!”

Rhazala’s mouth fell open in shocked awe. “Natrac? You’re Natrac?” Her eyes flashed and her grip tightened on the steering road. “My coach is yours!”

For a moment, staring at Natrac was all Singe could do too. He’d seen the half-orc wear many faces, from blustering merchant to desperate fighter, but in the deep rage that colored Natrac’s features now he could see for the first time the man who might have earned a warrant-notice from the Sentinel Marshals of House Deneith. “Bloody moons, Natrac!” he managed.

Natrac thrust his tusks forward. “I’ve had enough of Biish. I may be afraid of Dah’mir, but Host and Six curse me if I’m going to take anything more from that shekot! If he’s going to force me to go back to what I was, I’m going all the way.”

“I’m glad you’re on our side then.” Singe blew out his breath and thought quickly, trying to assess the situation. “If Biish is expecting the kalashtar to rally at the Gathering Light, that’s probably where he’ll stage the main thrust of his attack. How many people does he have, Natrac?”

“Knowing Biish, more than enough to do the job. And Vennet told Biish he’d have assistance during the attack.”

“Dah’mir,” Dandra said between her teeth. “Light of il-Yannah, Dah’mir will dominate the kalashtar while Biish’s attack takes down the Adarans.”

Singe narrowed his eyes. “But he still needs Biish’s gang, or he’d have done all this himself. Biish is his vulnerability. Stop the raid and we can stop Dah’mir.”

“That’s not much easier,” said Natrac. “‘More than enough people to do the job’ is more than us. He’s going to have us outnumbered.”

“We’ve faced worse odds-and unless you have your old gang tucked away in your pocket, we don’t have a choice.” Singe glanced at Dandra. “Which way to the Gathering Light?”

Dandra turned and flung out an arm. “Rhazala, that way!”

“Moza!” The coach moved, curving smoothly in the direction Dandra had indicated-

— a curve that ended in a lurch as Rhazala squealed and yanked at the steering rod to avoid a small skycoach that came swooping down out of the sky and directly at them. Four figures squatted in the other coach and Singe caught the unmistakable gleam of moonlight on drawn steel.

“Biish!” Rhazala yelped.

“Bandits!” spat Natrac.

But steel wasn’t the only thing that moonlight flashed on. The figures in the other coach wore blue jackets, and the coach itself bore a familiar crest. “Blademarks!” shouted Singe. “Rhazala, get us down!”

“Don’t move your coach!” A voice as familiar as the Blademarks crest rolled above the sounds of chaos that came from Fan Adar-but the voice didn’t come from the coach ahead of them. Singe twisted around. A second coach carrying more blue-jacketed mercenaries had come into position behind them. Crouched in the front of the coach, a wand in his grasp, was Mithas d’Deneith. “Don’t move your coach, don’t move yourselves, don’t try to cast any spells-and don’t try to use any psionics, kalashtar. At the first sign that anything is amiss, we will bring you down!”

“One of the men in the other coach has a wand too!” said Dandra. Rhazala gave another little yelp of dismay and tried to shrink down.

Anger burst inside Singe, and he stood up. “Mithas, you bastard! What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing, Singe. I’ve been waiting for you to come back. When I realized you were hanging around with kalashtar, I knew you wouldn’t be away from Overlook for long.” The sorcerer’s voice was thick with anger. As his coach drifted closer, Singe got a better look at his face and the faces of the three men who rode with him. Mithas’s face was still patched with the burst blood vessels inflicted by Moon’s-Virikhad’s-psionic attack in the fight below Nevchaned’s home. Singe was fairly certain he recognized the other mercenaries from the earlier fight as well. They looked just as angry as Mithas.

He ground his teeth together. “Have you seen what’s going on down below?”

“No one’s paying me to worry about goblins and kalashtar. There’s only one thing I want.” Mithas nodded at Ashi. “Hand over the marked woman, and I’ll let you go down and play with the cog-puppies and dreamers.”

From the corner of his eye, Singe saw both Ashi and Dandra stiffen. Even Rhazala poked her head up to glare at Mithas. The sorcerer raised with his wand threateningly. “I said don’t move!”

“You’re a worthless idiot,” Singe growled at him. “Dol Arrah’s honor, Robrand was right to kick you out of the Frostbrand. Let us go, Mithas. We need to get down to the street. What’s happening here is so much bigger than your greed that you couldn’t understand it if you tried!”

Mithas’s face darkened even more. Singe thought he saw a trickle of fresh blood break through the sorcerer’s skin. “You’re not in a position to talk back, Singe!” Mithas said. “I underestimated you before, and I think you underestimate how much I want that foundling and her mark. I don’t know where you found her, but when I bring her to the lords of Deneith the reward I’ll receive will be bigger than You can understand.” He leveled his wand at Singe’s chest … then let it drop to point at the hull of the skycoach under his feet. “I could shatter that coach with a wave of this wand. Surrender her to me, or you’ll be meeting the street fast and hard.”

Singe glared at him. “Do that and you’ll drop all of us.”

Mithas gave him a cold smile and raised his other hand. It, too, held a wand. “Levitation,” he said. “I can hold her up while the rest of you fall. Like it or not, she’s coming with me.”

“I have a name!”

Ashi stood abruptly, moving with a lethal grace that barely rocked the coach. She glanced at Singe for an instant and the wizard was startled to see that her face was pale and taut, then she turned to face Mithas.

“I am Ashi,” she said, “daughter of Ner, granddaughter of Kagan who bore this sword.” She drew her weapon with a swift motion that made Singe catch his breath and Mithas jerk both his wands toward her. “An honor blade of the Sentinel Marshals.” She stared past the sword at Mithas. “I am no one’s to surrender. I go with no one I do not choose to go with. Threaten my friends again, and my blade will find honor in taking your head off of your shoulders.”

Mithas seemed genuinely startled at Ashi’s blunt pronouncement, and Singe couldn’t keep his lips from curving into a smile. Who had the sorcerer underestimated now? Standing tall and proud, untouchable in her savage dignity, Ashi spun her sword around and slid it deftly back into her scabbard.

She met Mithas’s eyes boldly. “But I will go with you,” she said.

CHAPTER 18

Singe’s sense of triumph twisted into shock. “What?”

His voice wasn’t the only one raised. “Ashi, no!” Dandra cried out at the same time Natrac said, “Host and Six, are you insane!” Rhazala’s face brightened and she called, “Moza, chib! Save us!” Mithas’s smile came back to his face in a grin that made Singe feel sick.

At the same moment, the Thronehold spectacle began. Singe was dimly aware of ringing bells and blaring horns, a joyful call that spread across Sharn and climbed until it rang in the dark sky. It was joined by flashes of light high overhead. Two dozen or more spellcasters and dragonmarked would be working together to cast illusions into the night, their individual efforts combining to create vast panoramas and enormous phantasmal effigies. The wave of awed gasps as the entire city drew breath in amazement was audible even above the bells and horns.

It mingled with the sounds of violence that rose from Fan Adar. A deep voice cursed in Goblin, then a higher human or kalashtar voice wailed in pain. Singe couldn’t look up. His eyes were on Ashi. His ears rang with the shock of her declaration.

She would go with Mithas?

But Ashi wasn’t finished. “There’s a price!” she shouted at Mithas over the noise. “I go with you for a price.”

The sorcerer’s face grew suspicious. “What is it?”

“Ashi, you don’t have to do this for us!” said Dandra.

Ashi thrust a hand at her, motioning for her to remain quiet. She didn’t take her eyes off Mithas.

“Fight for us,” she said. “You say the kalashtar aren’t your concern? Make them your concern! You’re a mercenary. You fight for payment.” She reached to her shoulder, seized the fabric of her sleeve, and tore it free. She held her bare arm across her body so that the shifting light from the spectacle above played across her skin and made her dragonmark seem to dance. “Here’s your payment. When this is over and everyone is safe, you can deliver me to the lords of Deneith and claim your reward. I’ll go willingly. You have my honor.”

Mithas licked his lips but hesitated, looking like a hungry dog expecting the bowl of food placed before him to vanish if he moved. The greed in his eyes flashed bright. “Done!”

“Then follow us-quickly.” Ashi pointed at Singe. “Whatever order he gives, obey it. Rhazala, get us to the Gathering Light!”

“Moza!”

Singe sat down heavily as the skycoach shot forward. Ashi stayed on her feet, her body rigid. Behind them, Mithas was shouting at his men, getting his coaches moving, but aboard Rhazala’s coach no one said anything for several long moments. Finally, Natrac growled and said, “We drop and run. After the kalashtar are safe, we drop and run. Mithas won’t catch you, Ashi-”

“No.” The hunter shook her head. “I gave my honor-and even if I hadn’t, I meant what I said. I’ll go with him.”

“Ashi, we could have fought our way free!” The words broke out of Singe’s chest. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Rond betch, how exactly could we have fought free?” Ashi snapped. She turned to glare at him and Singe saw that her mouth was set in a hard, thin line. “Mithas had us and every moment we fought with him was another moment for Biish’s raid to go unchecked.”

Singe blinked. There was no answer he could think to give for that. “But … Mithas wins. He gets what he wanted.”

Ashi’s lips twitched and her teeth flashed in a sudden, savage grin. “Mithas wins? I would have gone to Deneith at some point anyway, wouldn’t I? It’s my clan now. This way we still have a chance to stop the raid-and maybe a better chance because we have Mithas and his men to fight with us.” Her eyes softened slightly. “Who told me I had to look at the greater good?”

His mouth opened and closed, then he smiled too. “Twelve moons, I hope the lords of Deneith are ready for you, Ashi.”

They were over the Gathering Light in only moments, but the confrontation with Mithas had cost them more than just time. Singe peered down over the side of the skycoach, trying to assess the situation with the dispassionate logic he had learned during the war. It was hard to be dispassionate, though, when he felt a connection to the people struggling below-and such a hatred for their attackers.

Fleeing prey and pursuing predators had converged on the Gathering Light. Singe had to give the kalashtar and Adarans credit-the hall was admirably situated for defense. The walkway and ramp that led down to the sunken courtyard before the building were broad, but allowed only a single means of access, while the courtyard itself left anyone in it exposed and fighting up stairs to enter the hall.

The same features made the Gathering Light a trap. A few burly bugbears held the walkway and the top of the ramp. A handful of goblin archers perched on the roof of one of the other buildings that overlooked the courtyard, loosing arrows into the fray. At the sides of the Gathering Light, Singe spotted fighting in alleys that must have led to other exits from the buildings. The members of Biish’s gang were forcing back anyone who tried to escape. The refuge of Fan Adar had become a prison.

It was a sight to rival any the spectacle projected into the sky and far more terrible. A statue of a kalashtar woman with crystal eyes standing in the center of the courtyard was the only fixed referenced point. All around it, Adarans fought hobgoblins in a seething mass of bodies, bare fists and strange weapons against sharp swords and heavy axes. Herons darted in and out of the fighting, clawing with talons and battering with wings. The doors of the hall had been forced open and light spilled out onto the battle. A line of Adarans stood against those who tried to enter, but that line crumbled even as Singe watched. Goblins leaped across their fallen foes and sprinted inside. They didn’t get far-thin, high-pitched cries rose and faltered-but the way had been opened.

There were no kalashtar fighting. Some stood here and there in the midst of the heaving conflict, but none of them moved except when they were jostled by the combat. The Adaran humans tried to protect them. Biish’s people ignored them. The kalashtar themselves stood with their faces raised like flowers toward the sun, staring at the peaked roof of the hall’s porch.

A solitary heron perched there, acid-green eyes staring down at the scene below. The bird looked like all the others, but there was a focused intensity about it that hinted at a greater power hidden in that feathered form. It was Dah’mir.

Singe caught a glimpse of slackness entering Dandra’s face and his heart almost stopped-the protection of Ashi’s dragonmark shouldn’t have faded so quickly-but before he could even speak, she blinked and drew a shuddering breath. “I called out through kesh,” she said. “There’s nothing! Dah’mir’s presence has captured them all!”

Singe stared at Dah’mir. The heron was as still as the statue in the courtyard-he must have thrown all of his concentration into controlling the kalashtar. As long as it kept him out of combat, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing. “Don’t try to fight him!” he said. “Concentrate on stopping Biish for now!”

“Singe!” Natrac cried. “Look there!” He pointed with his knife hand and Singe looked. In a corner of the courtyard protected by the descending ramp, hobgoblins guarded a group of nearly a dozen kalashtar, fighting back any Adaran who approached. Vennet stood with them, leaping about and screaming as his cutlass slashed air and flesh indiscriminately.

The captive kalashtar were too far away for Singe to be certain, but he had a feeling that all of them carried psicrystals. They were Dah’mir’s targets, the ones the dragon had arranged all of this just to capture.

Singe’s hand tightened on his rapier. He spun around and gestured for Mithas. The coaches carrying the sorcerer and his men hovered only a short distance away. Many of the mercenaries were staring in open amazement at the battle going on below, but Mithas at least maintained a professional alertness.

“Free the side doors!” Singe shouted at him. “Evacuate any kalashtar you can. Carry them out if you have to!”

Mithas raised a fist in acknowledgment and slapped the gawking steersman of his coach. Singe turned to Natrac, Ashi, and Dandra. “Dandra, you and Natrac help defend the main doors. Ashi, you and I will break the guard on the captives.”

All three nodded in understanding. Singe looked to Rhazala. “Take us down to the court-”

A harsh shout in Goblin from below interrupted him, and an instant later, a flurry of arrows struck the belly of the coach. “They know we’re here!” said Ashi, peering over the side. “It looks like the goblin archers are waiting before they loose again-Rond betch! Singe!”

Singe looked down again-and saw that Dah’mir had turned away from the battle to face them. He moved no further but acid-green eyes seemed to flare with hatred.

Like soldiers responding to some silent drill command, the herons that had been swooping over the battle broke away. They began climbing toward the coach, wings hammering on the air. Singe glanced at Dandra. Her eyes were burning.

“I’ll take the herons,” she said tightly. “You take the archers.”

“Done.” Singe pointed at Rhazala. “Down!”

The goblin screamed something that was probably unflattering, but thrust at the steering rod all the same. The coach dropped.

The sight of the Gathering Light invaded-defiled-by Biish’s gang brought an anger out of the depths of Dandra’s spirit like nothing she had ever felt before. Maybe it was because the hall should have been a place of haven and community. Maybe it was because Dah’mir thought he could so casually seize kalashtar and bend them to his will-as the coach dropped, she saw old Shelsatori dragged unresisting through the fighting and thrust among the dragon’s other captives. Maybe it was because if they failed here, more kalashtar would experience the anguish that she and Tetkashtai, Medalashana, and Virikhad had experienced, stripped and sundered to meet an ancient evil’s ambition.

That wasn’t going to happen.

The droning chorus of the whitefire rose around her, a throbbing counterpoint to the arcane words of the spell that Singe wove. She gathered her will and the psionic power coalesced in a hot shimmer around her hand. For a heartbeat, she waited as the distance between the climbing herons and the dropping coach closed-then she screamed her rage, thrust her hand forward, and released the fire.

Pale flame roared from her palm in a gout that lit up the night. Caught in the blazing cone, the herons screeched as the whitefire consumed them. They fell out of the sky like balls of burning pitch, greasy feathers trailing stinking smoke. New shouts broke out below as the burning remains fell into the fight in the courtyard. Vennet’s voice rose above them all. “No! No! Storm at dawn, no!”

Dandra ignored him.

One of the foul birds had survived and kept climbing even as the flames ate at it. She fell back a short step as it surged up over the side of the coach and plunged toward her face with talons flailing.

The thin blade of a rapier thrust past her and sheared through the bird’s scrawny neck. The heron dropped away, following the rest of Dah’mir’s unnatural flock into death. Dandra swung around to look at Singe. Beyond him, she caught a glimpse of four dead archers with the marks of fiery magic smoldering in their chests as the coach dropped past the roof line. The wizard’s eyes met hers with a fierce passion, though his words remained focused on the situation at hand.

“Clear us a place to land?” he asked.

She gave him a brief smile-then swung back to the side of the coach and vaulted over it into the night.

Rhazala’s gasp followed her, but it took Dandra only a thought to draw the fabric of space around herself and slow her descent. She fell like a cat into the battle below, screaming as she dropped. “Adar! Adar! Bhintava adarani!”

A hobgoblin looked up at her cry, saw her falling, and tried to leap out of the way, but he was too slow. Dandra came down with both feet across his shoulders. He crashed to the ground, his face slapping into the stone. Dandra thrust with her spear, driving the gleaming crysteel head into his neck at the base of his skull. He shuddered once and went limp, but Dandra was already moving on. She pushed herself off from the ground and skimmed above it. A goblin dived at her with a knife, but she just slid aside. The butt of her spear shaft snapped into his face, and he reeled back. Before any other enemies could move for her, she glanced up at the descending coach and concentrated.

Visible only in her mind’s eye, threads of vayhatana spun out before her, piling into a woven mass. Where the coach would come down, two Adaran humans fought back to back against four goblins and a bugbear with rows of gold rings in its big ears. “Bhinto seshay!” she shouted at them. All of the combatants glanced at her, but only the Adarans dived for the ground as she released the threads of vayhatana.

Waves of invisible force caught the goblins and the bugbear, hurling them away and into another cluster of Biish’s thugs. Dandra dashed forward, grabbed the startled Adarans, and pulled them out of the way as the coach came down. They stared at her in surprise for moment, then one of them raised his weapon. “Bhintava Adarani!” he crowed. His friend echoed him, and both of them threw themselves at the nearest hobgoblin. The cry spread, taken up by every fighting Adaran in the courtyard.

Ashi was the first out of the coach, heaving Natrac with her. Singe followed, then slapped the side of the coach. “Up, Rhazala! Get out of here and take this coach back wherever you stole it from!”

“Good luck, if you live!” the goblin said as she pulled on the steering rod. The coach shot up into the night, and for the first time, Dandra actually looked at the Thronehold spectacle unfolding in the sky. Among the stars and moons, warriors in ancient dress battled goblins in the story of the first human settlement of Sharn. She looked at Singe.

“Do you think that’s an omen?” she asked.

“I hope so!” He bent his head and gave her a kiss, then turned and sprinted in the direction of Vennet’s mad cries with Ashi watching his back.

A cry from Natrac brought her around. The half-orc struggled against a knot of goblins trying to drag him down by sheer weight. Natrac stabbed at them, but they clung to the arm that bore his knife-hand. Dandra cracked her spear across their skulls, and they dropped, though not before one had sunk his teeth into Natrac’s good arm. He howled and shook his arm so violently the goblin was flung away.

The bite was raw and deep, but Natrac just let it bleed. “Can you burn us a way through to the Gathering Light?” he said as they forced their way forward.

Dandra shook her head. “No! There are too many Adarans fighting and too many kalashtar-oh!”

A staring form, pushed by the dodge of a hobgoblin, fell against her. It wasn’t the sudden impact that forced the gasp from her lips-it was recognition. Nevchaned’s body was limp in her arms, his eyes fixed on Dah’mir. The old kalashtar was armed with a pair of heavy smith’s hammers, but they hadn’t done him any good. Rage and disgust surged in her, and she stared up at Dah’mir, still perched on the peak of the Gathering Light.

Natrac grabbed her arm and pulled her away. “The doors, Dandra! We can’t fight Dah’mir!”

“I can give him something to concentrate on other than the kalashtar though!” She reached into herself and summoned up the drone of whitefire. There was no one between her and the dragon. If she could break his hold on the kalashtar-

She didn’t get the chance. Abruptly, the hot glow of intense firelight fell over the front of the Gathering Light and raked across the battle in the courtyard. A roar like a furnace filled the air. The battle cries of the Adarans grew quiet and even Biish’s thugs froze. Her attack on Dah’mir forgotten, Dandra whirled around.

An airship swooped down from the skies, slipping right in among the towers and buildings of Fan Adar. The light and the roar came from the fiery elemental ring that wrapped around the ship, supported by great curved beams arcing above, below, and to either side of her hull. She wasn’t the largest airship Dandra had ever seen-from her size and lines and the name Mayret’s Envy written in elaborate script on her bow, Dandra guessed the ship was some wealthy aristocrat’s private yacht-but she had a look of speed and maneuverability about her.

The projecting ring made it impossible to land the vessel, but her unseen pilot brought her right alongside the raised walkway, on the other side of the Gathering Light’s sunken courtyard. The bugbears that had held the walkway pulled back from the heat, though they didn’t pull back far. Partway between the bow and the great ring, a hatch opened in the side of the ship and a long loading ramp unfolded, stretching beyond the radius of the ring to reach the walkway. Two bugbears rushed forward to seize and steady the end of the ramp.

Vennet’s voice rang out as clearly as if he’d been giving orders on the deck of Lightning on Water. “Make way! Time to load the cargo! Make way!” A cheer went up from Biish’s gang, and a new flurry of violence erupted as the thugs pushed back the Gathering Light’s Adaran defenders. Hobgoblins began racing up the ramp from courtyard to walkway, each with a kalashtar thrown casually over his shoulders. The bugbears from above met them halfway, taking two kalashtar at a time and lumbering across the loading ramp into the floating ship.

“Light of il-Yannah, no!” Dandra cursed. Across the courtyard, similar cries rose from the Adaran humans. Many of them began to fight their way back toward the captive kalashtar.

“Lords of the Host!” said Natrac. “That’s what Vennet needed Benti for! He needed a second Lyrandar pilot to fly that thing!” He looked at Dandra. “What do we do now?”

“You die, Natrac!” roared a new voice. “This time, you die!”

Heavy feet pounded stone. Dandra and Natrac turned together as Biish came rushing down the stairs of the Gathering Light, a jagged hobgoblin sword swinging in his hand. Goblins and hobgoblins alike jerked away from his charge. Most of the thugs around Dandra and Natrac took one look at the enraged ganglord and pulled away from the target of his wrath as well.

Most, but not all. Dandra sensed rather than saw the movement behind her and tried to dodge. It was too late. A heavy club swung by a lean hobgoblin smashed into her shoulder and sent her staggering. Natrac tried to steady her, but a goblin grabbed at his arm, holding him back. Dandra fought past her pain and jabbed her spear at the goblin. He yelped and let go, but more thugs found renewed courage and crowded in-only to be thrown back as Biish burst through their ranks. He leveled his sword at Natrac and at her. “You should have run again, Natrac!”

The half-orc thrust his tusks forward. “I’m through running, Biter.” He dropped into a defensive stance, knife-hand at the ready.

Until the airship came down, Singe had lost track of Vennet in the swirl of fighting. A trio of hobgoblins had come at him and Ashi, backing them into a cluster of Adarans gathered around a pair of stunned kalashtar. By the time blood stained Singe’s rapier, the chaos of battle in shadows had turned them around.

The flying ship arrived like dawn. The goblin who had been tying up Singe’s rapier with a pair of flashing daggers flinched at the sudden glare. Singe stayed focused, sliding his blade past the creature’s faltering guard and into his chest, before looking up to study the ship and read the name on her bow. He bit off a curse and blocked the swing of a hobgoblin’s sword. Ashi, fighting beside him, gave free vent to her emotions, however.

“Rond betch! What’s this for?”

Singe made a guess as he fought. If Dah’mir was going to stay in the city with them, skycoaches would have done the job. “To take the kalashtar out of Sharn!”

He thrust and the hobgoblin fell back clutching his leg. Ashi’s opponent dropped as well. Singe grabbed the hunter and pulled her toward the corner of the courtyard where the captive kalashtar were being held. “We have to hurry or-”

Vennet’s shouting voice cut him off. “Make way! Time to load the cargo! Make way!”

Through the fighting, Singe caught a glimpse of Vennet waving his cutlass, then lost him again as the battle heaved in response to the command. A hobgoblin carrying a kalashtar appeared on the ramp, climbing up toward the walkway and the airship. Singe tried to picture how many captives he had seen from above. It couldn’t have been seventeen, could it? “Dah’mir doesn’t have all his captives, yet!” he said.

“I think he does,” said Ashi. “Look on the walkway!”

Singe looked and cursed. The angle from the sunken courtyard hid some of what was happening above, but he could see bugbears carrying more limp kalashtar in from the shadows. Three … four. Enough to make up the difference. Biish’s people must have made some captures as they drove the kalashtar toward the Gathering Light.

They needed to break through the line of guards. Singe drew a shallow breath. “Ashi, be ready to move,” he said, then focused on a thick tangle of goblins and Adarans, pointed his fingers, and hissed a spell.

Like grain before a scythe, the whole tangle crumpled to the ground. Ashi choked. “Dead?”

“Asleep. Move!” Beyond the fallen combatants, only a few startled goblins separated them from open space. Singe raised his rapier high and charged with a scream. The nerve of the goblins broke and they dived aside. He and Ashi burst through into the clear at the bottom of the ramp to the walkway.

Less than five paces away, Vennet whirled around. The half-elf’s eyes opened wide in a face speckled with blood. There were still hobgoblins carrying kalashtar up the ramp behind him, but a wild grin split his lips and he spread his arms as if in invitation. “You’re too late, Singe!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “It’s over!”

Singe leaped for him in grim silence. His rapier darted forward, but Vennet folded his arms and brought his cutlass around to beat the thin blade down. Singe let his rapier drop with the impact, then twisted to the side and cut upward. A gap opened in the white fabric of Vennet’s shirt, and a bloody crease in the flesh of his side. Vennet gasped and jumped back, his smiling lips peeled back in a snarl. Ashi stepped up to Singe’s side, and Vennet’s eyes darted between the two of them before narrowing sharply. “Dabrak!” he screamed.

On the ramp above, a bugbear with a nasty-looking axe in either hand turned, and his large, hairy face lit up pleasure. Letting loose a bellow, he sprinted down at them, axes held low and ready to strike.

Singe’s rapier wavered between the two threats-and in that instant, Vennet pressed forward, cutlass chopping down. Singe pushed himself to the side and the curved blade cut the air just past his arm. He saw Ashi turn to take on Dabrak, her shining honor blade meeting his two axes blow for blow and block for block.

Singe turned himself to focus on Vennet. The half-elf’s wild swing became a cut at Singe’s ankles. The wizard hopped back, stabbing at Vennet’s outstretched sword arm. Vennet snatched it clear. The two men circled each other for a moment, then Vennet flung himself forward once again.

This time Singe met his blow before it fell. Rapier and cutlass grated together as Singe’s block and the momentum of Vennet’s attack pushed the blades high. Their forearms locked together, muscles straining. Vennet sneered into Singe’s face. “You can’t resist me,” he said. “I command the wind itself! I’ll steal the air from your lungs-yours and your false-marked bitch!”

His eyes were bright and spittle flew with his words. There was a stink of decay around him, an odor of infection that brought memories of healers’ tents after battle, of rotting wounds and gangrene, flooding into Singe’s mind. He choked on the stench and Vennet grinned. “You can’t stand against the power of a true Siberys mark!”

Singe clenched his teeth. “Are you as blind as you are insane, Vennet? You don’t have a Siberys mark!”

He thrust hard with the words, heaving with all of his strength, and Vennet went staggering back. He glared at Singe with such rage and hatred that the wizard felt a chill spread through him. Singe brought up his rapier, ready for another attack-

The cry that came down from the top of the ramp only made him colder. “Captives are on board!”

Vennet’s eyes opened wide with terrible triumph. “Too late, Singe!” He thrust out his hand. “Storm lash my enemies!”

The howling wind that burst from Vennet was no stronger than the power Singe had seen and felt Vennet display in the past. Mad words made the sudden gust no greater. The wind was still more than strong enough to send Singe stumbling backward, blown before its force. Ashi was caught in its path, as well. She cried out in surprise and through narrowed eyes, Singe saw her grab for the nearest solid object to steady herself. That object happened to be Dabrak, but even the big bugbear staggered in the face of the wind. Beyond hunter and thug, goblins screamed as the gale sent them tumbling.

The wind only lasted a moment, vanishing with an abruptness that left Singe reeling, but a moment was all Vennet needed. By the time Singe had regained his feet, the half-elf was at the top of the ramp and onto the walkway.

Curses and the clang of metal on metal behind Singe marked the resumption of Ashi and Dabrak’s duel. Singe didn’t even look back at them-legs pumping, a spell ready on his lips, he raced up the ramp after Vennet.

He was just in time to see Vennet dash up a loading ramp and vanish through a hatch into the airship’s interior. A bugbear, apparently not fast enough to get out of Vennet’s way, was huddled on the walkway at the end of the ramp as blood gushed from a wound across its belly. The other bugbears and hobgoblins who had helped load the kalashtar onto the ship were all staring in confusion, but Singe’s appearance, rapier drawn, sent them scrambling out of the way. The end of the loading ramp was already swinging away. Singe leaped the gap between it and the walkway without looking down. Three fast strides carried him the length of the ramp, and he threw himself through the hatch, ready for an ambush.

The hatch opened into a small hold. The only light was the fiery glow that fell through the hatch from the elemental ring. In the dimness, Singe could make out some crates, a few barrels-and a number of silent, unmoving figures. Standing, sitting, or lying in whatever position they had been placed, Dah’mir’s kalashtar captives stared at him with unblinking eyes before-one by one-looking away beyond him and back toward the presence that held their minds prisoner.

There was no use trying to free them. Singe had seen Dandra in this state. The kalashtar would do nothing of their own volition until Dah’mir released them. Moving cautiously, he stepped further into the hold. He couldn’t see any sign of Vennet, but there were passages leading fore and aft, rectangles of deeper darkness amid the shadows.

Then from the passage leading fore came noise. An exclamation in Goblin, cut short by the rending of flesh. A body falling. Vennet’s voice, softly. “Storm at dawn, didn’t I tell you not to wander around on board?”

Quick footsteps moved back aft along the passage. Singe darted to the farthest side of the hold and crouched down among the unmoving kalashtar. Vennet reappeared, his cutlass and ruined shirt dripping new blood.

A spell rose in Singe’s mind, and he lifted his hand, tracking the mad half-elf. He would only have one chance to catch him. He didn’t relish the idea of hand-to-hand fighting in the hold, and the spell had to be precise or he’d risk harming the kalashtar. He focused his concentration, pointed his fingers-then held back the spell at the last moment as sudden shouts of alarm erupted from outside the ship and Vennet leaped to throw a lever beside the hatch. With a groan of steel and wood, the loading ramp began to fold itself back into the ship and somewhere a bell rang. Singe felt a tremor pass through the airship, a surge of power from the elemental that drove it, and caught his breath. They were moving!

But he could still stop this. Vennet was still leaning against the frame of the slowly closing hatch, watching whatever was happening outside. His body was a perfect silhouette. Singe focused his concentration again …

“Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-”

The killing song was right in his ear. Singe sucked in his breath and jerked his head around. A hand shot up. Cold fingers grabbed his. Moon’s face looked back at him in the dim light-but the intelligence behind the pin-prick eyes was like nothing human or kalashtar Singe had ever seen.

“When the blue moon is full and bright, the servants will come to the master,” whispered Virikhad. “Dah’mir must succeed.”

Silver-white light flared around Moon’s fingers and agony tore through Singe’s hand. He yelled-he couldn’t have held it back-and against the glare of the light he saw Vennet spin around in surprise just as the hatch slammed shut. For a moment, the hold was in darkness. Moon’s hand fell away.

Then another light blossomed, an everbright lantern carelessly torn open in passing, and Vennet was rushing at him. “You!” he screamed. “Storm at dawn, how?”

Singe tried to lift his rapier but Moon’s weight had shifted on top of it. He tried to cast the spell that had been on his tongue only moments before, but his injured fingers couldn’t form the gestures. Vennet pounced on him, one hand squeezing around his throat before he could try to speak another. “Treachery! Murder!”

The other man’s weight bore Singe backward. His skull cracked against something-a crate, a barrel, the wall-and sparks flashed inside his head. A fist or maybe a foot drove into his belly, then Vennet straddled him, pinning one of Singe’s hands to the floor under his knee as he slammed his head back again, screaming all the while. “Mutiny! Mutiny, Singe! I know you did it! I know you turned my crew against me. When did you start? Was it back in Yrlag? I should have left you on the dock. But I was greedy, wasn’t I? Greedy!”

Singe tried to strike Vennet with his free hand. He punched. He clawed. He tore at Vennet’s pointed ear. Vennet just jerked his head away and punched him hard in the shoulder. Singe’s arm fell, numbed. He bucked at Vennet’s weight. The half-elf slammed his head back a third time, even harder. Sparks gave way to shadows as Singe’s vision swam from the impact and the madman’s grip around his throat.

“You’ve got no respect for authority, Singe. No respect for power. You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Vennet’s voice rose and broke into a screech. “I don’t have a Siberys mark? I’m blind and insane?”

A knee crushed into Singe’s chest. A hand slapped against his forehead and forced his head back. The hand that had been around his throat withdrew. Air rushed into Singe’s lungs. The shadows cleared from his vision-

— just as Vennet’s fingers dug into his face. Fire burned in his left eye and even though he howled at the pain, he could still hear a terrible wet, ripping noise. He sank back into shadows, although somehow he was dimly aware of Vennet staggering away from him and flinging something across the hold.

“Who’s blind, Singe?” Vennet demanded. “Who’s blind?”

He had a sensation of fingers twined in his hair dragging him to his feet, of being forced to walk, of tripping on stairs, of a sudden burst of cool air and wind. A woman’s shout of surprise. Dah’mir’s oil-smooth voice. Then someone pushed him and he was falling-

Biish roared again. The sword swept around in a flat arc, forcing both Natrac and Dandra back a pace. Dandra tried to slide forward again behind that swing, but Biish turned the blow around faster than she would have thought possible and she had to drop to avoid it. There was no parrying that heavy blade-it would shear right through her spear shaft!

Her move gave Natrac an opening, and he jumped in to slash at Biish’s side with his knife-hand. Biish grunted at the blow, but the knife just scraped on metal. Through the gash that it opened in Biish’s coat, Dandra caught the flash of a mail shirt. Biish punched out with his off-hand. Natrac dodged back, but another swing of Biish’s sword forced him back even further. For a moment, the hobgoblin’s back was to her. Natrac’s knife might not have been able to penetrate Biish’s mail shirt, but her spear could.

Before she could rise to strike, though, hands grabbed for her. She kicked, felt her boot strike something soft. The hold on her fell away, but the opportunity was lost-Biish and Natrac had turned in their deadly dance. More of the hobgoblin’s thugs closed around her. She swung her spear desperately, striking with point and shaft wherever she could. Closely pressed, there was no room for her dodge and no opportunity for her to concentrate even for the moment it would take to bring her powers to bear. For every goblin she struck down, two more seemed to appear. All she could do was fight and shout. “Adar! Adar!”

“Bhintava Adarani!” Suddenly two forms fought with her-the two Adaran humans she had rescued earlier! They carved through her attackers with hard precise blows, one wielding a pair of short curved blades, the other striking only with stiffened fingers. One of them met her eyes for an instant and grinned at her with a mouth bloodied by some earlier blow. Dandra clenched her teeth, shortened her grip on her spear, and renewed her attack, using the unexpected aid to fight her way closer to Natrac.

The half-orc and Biish still looked like they were dancing. Biish’s sword swung. Natrac dodged back, then slipped inside Biish’s guard to strike quickly, before darting away once more. The hobgoblin’s arms showed half a dozen nicks, but nothing that slowed him-it would take a lucky blow from Natrac’s knife-hand to pierce the chain shirt.

But only a single connecting strike from Biish’s heavy blade would bring Natrac down. And Natrac was tiring. He stumbled as he stepped back away from Biish. The ganglord saw his opening and let out another roar, raising his sword over his old rival. “Die, taat!”

“No!” cried Dandra. She thrust back a goblin’s feeble strike then drew in her will, focusing her power into a single thread of vayhatana to snatch the sword from Biish’s grasp before it could fall, even though in her gut, she knew it would be too late.

And it was-for Biish.

Natrac uncoiled from his feigned weakness like a bent sapling springing straight. With all the strength of his arm and shoulder behind it, his knife-hand punched up under Biish’s jaw. The blow snapped his toothy mouth closed, pinning lower jaw to upper. Biish’s eyes opened wide. His body stiffened.

Natrac planted his hand against the hobgoblin’s stunned face and jerked the knife free. A spasm shook Biish and he collapsed backward. His sword, untouched by Dandra’s power, fell from his grip to ring on the stones of the courtyard.

For a moment, the goblins and hobgoblins fighting around them froze in shocked disbelief. Then a hobgoblin who had been moving to attack Dandra shouted and fell back. More shouts rose on the air as panic spread through the courtyard, and suddenly, the gang members who had been fighting to breaking into the Gathering Light were fighting to escape.

A hiss like a steaming kettle, as loud as if the ocean itself were boiling, broke from the peak of the hall’s roof. Dandra twisted around to look up at Dah’mir. His thin, feathered form was shaking and his acid-green eyes flashed as he stared down at her and Natrac. Dandra’s belly tightened with fear at the prospect of the dragon’s rage-then tightened even more as she realized that he was laughing. Dark wings spread, and Dah’mir sprang from the roof to arc high over the courtyard. A new cry from the Adarans broke through her fear.

She spun around to see the loading ramp of Mayret’s Envy slam closed, and the ship start to rise, gathering speed with every moment. Still laughing, Dah’mir settled onto the rail. His hiss turned into a mocking call that drifted down from above. “Too late! Too late!”

But the cry that truly cut into Dandra’s soul was Ashi’s desperate shout from across the courtyard.

“Dandra! Dandra, Singe is on the ship!”

Groggy voices woke to a confused chorus around Dandra-kalashtar released from Dah’mir’s power as the rising airship bore the dragon away. She heard Nevchaned close at hand, heard Natrac babbling some kind of explanation at him, heard Ashi shouting. The voices just slipped away. Dandra’s eyes were on the airship as the vessel soared up. Her mind was flung out in kesh, groping desperately.

Singe? Singe? Answer me, Singe!

Then something fell over the side of the airship. A body. The light of the elemental ring flashed on blond hair. “Singe!” Dandra screamed.

She wove vayhatana almost without willing it, and a skein of light she saw only inside her mind stretched up into the sky-stretched and stretched, but still didn’t quite reach the falling wizard. Dandra thrust against the ground, pushing herself up as high as she could to meet him, as if an extra pace’s distance could make a difference. It couldn’t. It didn’t. Singe plummeted down.

Then suddenly she wasn’t alone. Other minds reached out to hers. It was less than kesh, but also more. She recognized minds-Hanamelk, Nevchaned, Selkatari, and others-and it seemed as if their psionic strength flowed into her. She glanced down from the sky for an instant.

Hanamelk, looking tired and disheveled, stood with his hand on the statue that stood in the center of the courtyard. The statue’s crystal eyes glowed a thin, haunting blue. A misty tendril of the same color leaped from Hanamelk to Nevchaned-and from Nevchaned to Selkatari at the doors of the Gathering Light, and from Selkatari to a man Dandra didn’t know but who stood with his eyes on her, and from him to another kalashtar, and from her to yet another.

And from all of them, tendrils reached out to her.

Hanamelk’s voice echoed in her mind, words spoken at the speed of thought. We know what you did for us. Use our strength as your own.

Glance, recognition, and words took less than a moment. Dandra lifted herself, looked up again-and this time reached out to Singe with ease. Vayhatana wrapped his body. His fall slowed and stopped. For a moment, he floated in the sky, midway between the towers of Sharn and the Thronehold spectacle still unfolding high above, then Dandra drew him carefully down to the courtyard before the Gathering Light.

As his body came closer, the strength lent to her by the other kalashtar faded, until it was her power alone that supported him. The loss of their strength left her feeling as weak as she had ever felt, but the joy that filled her made up for it. Singe lay stiff within the cocoon of vayhatana, but she could sense his movements. He was alive-but it wasn’t until he drifted down into the light that spilled from the Gathering Light that she realized something was wrong.

The hair that fell into the light was blond, but touched with red. The clothes were none she had ever seen before. And the face-pale with terror-that came into view wasn’t that of a human man, but of a half-elf woman!

Natrac’s eyes opened wide and he choked out, “Benti?”

The carefully spun vayhatana vanished, spilling the woman the last few paces onto the stone of the courtyard. Dandra lifted her face to the sky, desperately seeking the rising spark that was Mayret’s Envy.

But the night was full of sparks as the final spectacle of Thronehold burst into a colorful rain of fire. Across Sharn cheers and applause rose like the wings of a hundred thousand birds.

In Fan Adar, one voice rose in a wail of loss and fury.

CHAPTER 19

Thin lines of smoke rose in the south. Dusk was approaching and the sinking sun’s light rendered the smoke pale, turning the lines into bright scratches against the southern sky. Geth thought that if he strained his eyes, he could even make out the dying fires that gave rise to the nearest lines of smoke and the dark forms that lay scattered around them. He knew that was his imagination. The flat places of the Shadow Marches were deceiving. It was too easy to see what he wanted to see and too tempting to believe it, almost as if some vast impersonal force lurked just beneath the waterlogged ground, ready to trick the unwary traveler.

He twisted and looked to the east. The blue moon of Rhaan was already a handspan above the horizon. Its changing face was still a few slivers short of a perfect circle. Two more nights, he thought. Two more nights and on the following day, Rhaan would rise full, cresting the horizon just as the sun sank.

He ducked his head. The sky vanished, replaced by the thick leaves and branches of the tree he had climbed-the highest point for any distance around. He crawled carefully back to the gnarled trunk, then half-clambered, half-slid out of the canopy and down to the ground. “Less than a night’s travel behind us,” he said.

“Khaavolaar.” Ekhaas’s ears pressed back as she kicked dirt over the remains of their own tiny fire. “They’re still gaining on us. This is madness.”

“If anyone knows madness, it’s Medala. She’s probably driving the horde faster than they’d normally run. The Gatekeepers are likely using their magic too.”

Geth picked up his sword belt and buckled Wrath around his waist, then swung what passed for his pack-a waterskin bundled inside a blanket, all of the gear that he had carried when they fled the Sharvat Vvaraak-over his shoulder.

Neither of them spoke the words that Geth knew both of them were thinking: if the horde of Angry Eyes was less than a night’s travel behind them and gaining ground, this might be the last night they ran ahead of the orcs.

After six nights of running, of rising before dusk and stumbling to a stop well after dawn, of enduring whatever obstacles the Shadow Marches had thrown into their path, a small part of him was almost ready to turn and face the horde. He wouldn’t have a chance, but he’d go down with a fight, sword and gauntlet taking as many orcs as he could with him.

And who would those orcs be? Allies against the Master of Silence. Gatekeepers. Friends like Orshok and Batul-like Kobus and Pog.

They weren’t his enemies. He couldn’t fight them. But if he and Ekhaas could reach the Bonetree mound before them, maybe they could figure out what Medala wanted with the horde and find a way to free them.

Two more nights of running. They only needed to stay ahead of the horde. He grunted and raised his head.

Ekhaas was looking at him, her amber eyes steady. “Tonight I’ll sing you the story of Mazaan Kuun and the Hundred Elves. You’ll find inspiration in it.”

Geth groaned. “Does Wrath figure in this story too?”

“It is a story of the name of Kuun,” said Ekhaas as if there could be no other answer.

“Does Mazaan Kuun die?”

“No, but the elves do.”

“Well, that’s something at least.” Geth stalked ahead of her into the tall clumps of stiff grass that had surrounded their day’s resting place.

He didn’t need to check their path-he saw it stretched out ahead of them, though not so much in his head as in his heart, placed there by the Gatekeeper amulet Batul had entrusted to him. As the old druid had instructed him, he’d lain on the ground every morning at dawn and the amulet had shown him the way they needed to go. The closer they got to the Bonetree mound, the more landmarks Geth thought he recognized in the distance from his first visit there, but he continued to use the amulet. Its guidance was so vivid and reliable that Geth had taken to placing snares along the route ahead each morning before returning to their chosen campsite. For four of the last five nights, that strategy had earned them their next day’s food without costing them any time spent hunting.

That night, the first snare was empty. Geth stooped to retrieve the braided grass cord he’d used to fashion the snare-and paused, taking a closer look at it. There was blood, still moist and sticky, on the cord. He straightened up with a hiss. “Grandfather Rat. This snare’s been stripped.”

“You mean whatever it caught escaped?” asked Ekhaas, peering over his shoulder.

“I mean it’s been stripped. Whatever it caught has been taken, and animals don’t reset snares.” He tore the cord free and flung it away into the grass.

The second snare he’d set had also been stripped. He studied it and the ground around it for several long moments before rising. “I don’t like this,” he said. “Whoever was here left no tracks behind. If they’re that good, they must know we’re here.”

“I didn’t see anyone during my watch,” said Ekhaas.

“Neither did I.” There was a third snare a short distance ahead. He motioned for Ekhaas to remain silent, then crept forward cautiously, taking care to remain well down among the grass.

His first glimpse of the snare made him blink and look again to make certain he wasn’t seeing something that wasn’t really there. The view didn’t change. “Rat!” he breathed.

Caught in the snare was one of the fat grass rats that had formed most of their diet for the last several days. Carefully laid out in front of the snare were two more, possibly taken from the other snares.

There were also three rabbits, a small heap of some blushing red fruit, two flat loaves of golden ashi bread, and two swollen skins, their surfaces wet with water.

“If we were in Darguun among the Marguul clans of the Seawall Mountains, I’d say that this was a peace offering,” Ekhaas whispered in Geth’s ear. “You know more about the Marches than I do. Who would do something like this and why?”

Geth’s eyes were on the waterskins. Designs had been painted onto the leather in bold, primitive swoops and shapes. He’d seen designs like that before. His teeth ground together. “Bonetree hunters,” he said.

Ekhaas cursed and reached for the hilt of her sword. Geth grabbed her hand and held it motionless.

Beyond the heap of food, a thick clump of the tall grass shook, paused, then shook again. A moment later, a man stood up from behind it and walked forward. He was lean, with muscles that stood out like knotted ropes across his body. He wore breeches and a vest of leather. Tattoos covered his arms, spines of bone pierced his ears, and Geth knew his guess at the source of the food had been right. The man was a Bonetree hunter.

But he was also unarmed. Although he didn’t look at their hiding place, Geth had a feeling the hunter knew exactly where they were. Squatting down on the far side of the food, he took up one of the loaves of bread and bit into it. The hunter swallowed the bread, replaced the loaf, then picked up one of the skins, drank from it, and replaced it as well. He ate a piece of the fruit in a single bite, juice dribbling down his chin. He spat out the pit, wiped the juice away, and sat back.

“The food is good, weretouched,” he said. The words were thickly accented but clear-the hunter could have made himself understood in any city of the Five Nations. “It is for you. Will you speak with me?”

A growl rose in Geth’s throat.

The hunter’s expression didn’t change, nor did the tone of his voice, but his jaw tightened. “I understand. You know I wouldn’t face you alone.” He raised his voice slightly and spoke a word in the language of the Bonetree clan. “Prashenis.”

All around them, the grass rustled as hunters rose from their hiding places. Behind the squatting man, a pair of hunters stepped forward, while two more-one of them barely more than a girl-stood up less than three paces to either side of Geth and Ekhaas. Both stood still for a moment, letting the shifter and the hobgoblin inspect them, then moved to join the others beyond the squatting hunter.

“You have my honor that there are no more of us here,” the first hunter said. He turned to look directly at them. “My name is Breff. I am huntmaster of the Bonetree clan. Will you speak with me now?”

Geth said nothing. He knew the man’s name. Ashi had spoken it. Seeing him and the other hunters, brought back memories. Cold memories of the first raid on the Bonetree mound and the battle to free Singe and Dandra. Hot, angry memories of the attack on Bull Hollow by Bonetree hunters in the company of the hideous four-armed creatures called dolgrims that served the dark powers of Siberys. He hadn’t stayed to see the aftermath of that attack-he, Singe, and Dandra had drawn the hunters and the dolgrims after them into the wilderness to spare the hamlet-but he’d seen more than enough.

A Bonetree hunter had cut down Adolan. Geth had killed him in retaliation, but to face Bonetree hunters across a peace offering was too much!

The continued silence brought a flush to Breff’s tanned face. “Weretouched, I want to talk to you! I know you were among those who took Ashi away. I know you were the one who struck down the Revered.”

The Revered-their name for Dah’mir. Geth still didn’t speak or move. The other hunters were beginning to look angry. Breff paused for a moment, then stood up sharply, his teeth bared. “Talk to me, weretouched, or you strike my honor!”

Geth’s growl rolled back in his throat and became a roar. “What honor do you have?” he said. Ekhaas hissed in frustration, snatched her hand free, and brought it up under his jaw, snapping his teeth closed on the words. Before he could stop her, the duur’kala had risen.

“The weretouched is too angry to speak,” she said. “He wants to know why the huntmaster of the Bonetree greets him with food and talk instead of with a sword.”

The words were stinging, delivered with a dismissive harshness. Geth choked in alarm and braced for Breff to rush them in a fury at the insult. The hunter, however, just stiffened. “He and I have met blood for blood, hobgoblin,” he answered with dignity. “I know that he has rond e reis-he is fierce and tough. I greet him with talk instead of a sword only because fighting each other gives strength to the enemy we share.”

It was too much. “What enemy?” shouted Geth, leaping up. “What enemy could we have in common, you Khyber-worshiping murderer?”

He would have lunged forward, but Ekhaas flung up an arm, holding him back. The four hunters standing behind Breff grabbed for their weapons. Geth wasn’t sure they’d understood what he’d said, but it was clear they understood his actions.

Breff also held up an arm, and the hunters froze. Breff met Geth’s gaze. “The Bonetree clan no longer serves the Dragon Below,” he said. “The Revered … Dah’mir-” his face twisted and he seemed to spit the name “-turned his face from us. The enemy we share is the one who stole his favor from us, the one who pursues you with the orcs. We’ve seen her among the horde. I know that she’s stolen their favor from you just as she stole Dah’mir’s from us.”

Geth blinked. “Medala?” he asked and Breff nodded.

Ekhaas stared at the hunter. “You’ve seen her with the horde?” she asked in disbelief. Breff’s face darkened again, though this time in shame instead of anger.

“The Bonetree clan is not what it was,” he said. “Our numbers are small. We’ve left the ancestor mound. Other clans eat our territory and would hunt us if they could find us. We live by stealth now instead of strength.” He looked up again and thrust out his chest. “But we still live, and we see more than we did when we were strong. We’ve been among the horde. We have seen. If you let us, weretouched, we will stand with you to bring down one who brought us down.”

The words and the gesture made Geth look at him for second time, and he realized with a start that Breff was younger than he’d taken him to be-not as young as the girl who stood behind him, but still a young man. Young, daring, and angry. Maybe the same age as Ashi. Maybe the same age Geth had been at Narath.

Cousin Bear and Grandmother Wolf, he thought, was that what I was like?

Ekhaas’s ears, however, bent at Breff’s words and her eyes narrowed. “The weretouched,” she said, “also brought you down, didn’t he? He fought the Bonetree clan. He wounded Dah’mir. Will you try to bring him down too?”

Breff turned on her, his entire body stiff. “Rond betch! You strike my honor! The weretouched has rond e reis. We’ve met blood for blood. He fights as I fight. He is an enemy to be valued, not one to betray. If I meant to bring him down-”

“-we wouldn’t be talking.” Ekhaas bent her head. “I apologize.”

And in doing so glanced sideways at Geth. He saw approval in her eyes. She thought Breff could be trusted.

Except that Geth wasn’t sure he wanted to trust the huntmaster and his hunters.

He could understand respect for an enemy. He’d battled foes worthy of respect. He could understand uniting against a common enemy-he’d done that too.

But working with the enemy that had devastated Bull Hollow made his stomach churn. He could see the hamlet burning, hear the screams of terror, could recall the names of the dead. All of them, not just Adolan. He could remember exchanging blows with Breff too, the hunter’s blade crashing against his gauntlet and against Wrath …

No, he realized, that wasn’t right. In Bull Hollow he’d still carried his old Blademarks-issue sword. If he’d fought Breff with Wrath, it had been at the battle before the Bonetree mound. And had it been Breff? He’d fought through so many dolgrims and Bonetree hunters in both battles that he couldn’t be sure.

We’ve met blood for blood, Breff had said. Geth looked at the huntmaster and at the hunters standing behind him, hands still on their weapons. How many of their friends had he killed? Ashi had been a Bonetree hunter. She would have been huntmaster if she hadn’t turned her back on Dah’mir. How many of her friends had he killed? They’d never talked about it. He’d never thought of it. Had Ashi?

Blood for blood. The Bonetree had been devastated just as Bull Hollow had. If they’d left the mound, they must have been broken, and like Ashi, they’d turned their back on Dah’mir. They weren’t a threat anymore.

But Medala and whatever plan was unfolding in her mad mind were.

Geth’s stomach still churned, but he clenched his jaw against it and glared at Breff. “You can stand with me against Medala,” he said, “but if we ever meet again on another battlefield, I’ll cut you down.”

Breff’s smile was cold. “And I would do the same.” He squatted down and picked another blushing fruit out of the pile. “Tell me what your plan is, weretouched. Both you and the horde travel toward the ancestor mound. You’ll find nothing there. It is a haunted place now.”

“My name is Geth, not ‘weretouched,’” Geth growled at him. “And yes, we travel toward the mound. We have to reach it before the blue moon is full and before the orc horde.” He said nothing of Medala’s prediction that Dah’mir would return. He had a feeling it might change the hunter’s mind about their alliance.

“You might reach it before the moon, but not before the horde. The orcs travel faster than you. They’ll catch up to you. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow.” Breff studied Geth, then bit into the fruit. “What would happen,” he asked, juice running from the corner of his mouth, “if you reached the mound after them?”

They hid in an abandoned animal den tucked among the roots of an old and dying tree. The tree stood at the base of a low bluff carved by some vanished river, leaning at such an angle that Geth could guess it had begun its life higher up the bluff and been carried down by the collapse of the slope.

They were packed in close together, all except the youngest of the Bonetree hunters, who still lingered outside, keeping watch. The sweat from their bodies was strong in Geth’s nose. Breff had run all of them through much of the night-the moonlight was bright enough for the human hunters to see-before they reached the den. The rabbits and grass rats that the hunters had brought along didn’t help either.

Breff had insisted that the orcs of the horde wouldn’t notice. “They will come and be gone,” he had said, “then we will emerge and follow them without danger. Che rond orc sao to sari che-the fierce orc sees only what is ahead.”

They wouldn’t be able to scout the area around the Bonetree mound before the horde arrived, but Geth had to admit that the idea was far better than having the horde catch them on the way there. And once they did reach the mound, they would have expert guides as well. It had been the hunters’ home for generations, after all.

What would they find there? Over the nights that he and Ekhaas had run before the horde, Geth had built a picture in his head of the Bonetree clan waiting for the orcs, angry at their defeat in the first battle before the mound and ready to take their revenge. From what Breff had described as they ran through the night, his imagination had been far from the mark. He’d assured Geth that the mound was abandoned. Even the dolgrims had retreated into the tunnels beneath and hadn’t ventured out. The declaration made Geth wondered even more about Medala’s motives in leading the horde to the mound. Could she really just want revenge on Dah’mir?

He tried to still his thoughts and empty his mind. Waiting for an enemy’s approach had never been his strength. Waiting before an attack, picking the time to strike, stalking an enemy-that he could handle. It brought an energy to him. Waiting for someone else to attack just made him fidget.

And fidgeting brought him a sharp elbow in the side from Ekhaas. The hobgoblin lay squeezed in at his left in the darkness. “Remain still,” she threatened him softly, “or I will sing you into paralysis.”

Geth let out a hissing breath in an attempt to calm himself. Ekhaas hissed in return. “Your breath smells.”

“We all smell,” he grumbled at her. He held his breath for a moment, though, trying to calm his racing heart. When the thunder of it had eased a little, he glanced at Ekhaas. For the night-blind humans, the den must have been in deep darkness. The little light that crept through the mouth of the hole was enough to let him see her clearly. “Tak for taking charge when we met the hunters,” he said. “I was too angry to talk to them.”

She snorted slightly, raising a small puff of dust from the ground. “That was obvious.”

“How did you know what to say to Breff?”

Ekhaas’s ears stood up. “I am a duur’kala. We are the diplomats of the heirs of Dhakaan.”

“That wasn’t like any diplomacy I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because you have no real understanding of honor,” Ekhaas told him, baring her teeth.

Their conversation was silenced by the skittering of a single pebble outside the den. A form dropped in front of the hole, blocking the light for a moment, then crawled inside. “Ans kolaos!” the hunter said, settling against Breff’s back.

“They come!” the huntmaster translated.

Everyone in the hidden den froze. It seemed to Geth that no one was even breathing, that they all strained to hear the first sounds of the approaching horde.

He wanted to fidget more than ever.

The first sign of the horde wasn’t a sound at all, but a vibration in the earth beneath his belly. Dust drifted down into his hair. The vibration grew stronger. Another pebble fell in front of the hole. Then another.

Then a cascade of earth was falling past the hole and the moonlight was flickering as running bodies came sliding down the slope and dashed past their hiding place. It was over in a moment, but Geth knew better than to move. Those had just been the scouts. The vibration beneath his belly was still growing.

There was a sound in the air too, flooding the night and squeezing into the hole with them. The rhythm of hundreds of feet, of throbbing drums and low chanting, made the music that set the pace of the horde. And a strange music it was, neither proper words nor pure notes, but the orcs still chanted with it.

Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi-

The youngest hunter cringed and covered her ears, but Geth froze and listened. Around his neck, the collar of black stones was bitingly cold. As the chant swelled, he could hear an undertone of crystalline ringing to it. Medala’s power, driving the horde of Angry Eyes onward.

The vibration in the ground was so strong it brought dust drifting down into his hair and eyes. The music made the air itself shake. Both vibration and music built until Geth wanted to curl up into a ball and scream-then, like a wave, they crested and broke. Dirt came pouring past the hole, the roots of the great tree seemed to shake under repeated impacts, and the moonlight flickered like a silver flame as the orcs of the horde flowed over and down the bluff.

This time, their passing seemed to go on for half the night. Falling dirt made a heap across the hole and on top of Geth’s head, but he didn’t move. He watched the shadowy forms that broke the moonlight, half hoping that among them he might spot Orshok or Krepis or Batul. For all that he could see of them, though, the forms might have been goblins instead of orcs.

Eventually the flood began to slow. The flickering passage of forms past the hole eased. The strange music of the horde began to fade-though as it did, he became aware of another music, as quiet as the falling dust. He glanced at Ekhaas. Her ears twitched back, but she fell silent. They all lay still and quiet in the hole long after the last trace of the horde’s chanting vanished from the air and the last hint of vibration from the ground. Finally, Breff crept up to the hole and peered out.

Geth looked at Ekhaas. “Grandfather Rat, what were you doing?” he hissed at her.

“Trying to find the countersong,” she said. “Any tone can be countered by another tone, any magical song by a countersong.”

“Medala’s power isn’t exactly a magical song.”

“It’s still has a kind of music about it,” said Ekhaas stubbornly. “My songs can block Medala’s power where Gatekeeper magic can’t. Maybe they can do more. Would you rather I didn’t try?”

Geth bared his teeth and looked to Breff. The huntmaster was watching them with barely concealed annoyance. “It’s good the orcs are gone. You two would have brought them down on us.” He jerked his head toward the hole. “Come. It’s safe.”

Emerging from their hiding place felt almost like emerging into a new world. So long in the gloom made the moonlight seem brighter to Geth’s eyes. The cool air was thick with the fresh odors of disturbed earth and crushed plants. Geth bounded back up the torn slope of the bluff and looked after the orcs. Under the light of the moons, the broken trail of their passage seemed like the wake of a ship on the ocean.

He slid back down to join the others. “Let’s go,” he told Breff.

The rise on which they lay two days later, looking down on the Bonetree mound, was the same one on which Geth and Batul had lain to plan their rescue of Singe and Dandra from Dah’mir’s grasp. Geth remembered vividly the scene that had spread out before him then. The members of the clan and Dah’mir’s dolgrims had been gathered together before the mound, waiting for the duel between Hruucan and Singe. In the gathering light of evening, the grass that covered the mound had bent in waves before the wind.

Only the grass and the mound were unchanged. The place where the Bonetree had gathered had turned into a battlefield that night, but except for a few scars where nothing grew, the grass had come back to hide even that. The light was lazy and golden, the light of late afternoon.

Where there had been hunters and dolgrims, there were orcs, bundled up into blankets and sleeping through the day.

Geth narrowed his eyes and studied the sleeping horde. They weren’t clustered together. Groups of orcs were spread out before the mound and even behind it. The groups made lines of battle, as if an army had been put into place then sent to sleep. The orcs were ready to wake and fight.

As they’d followed the horde’s trail over the last day, Geth and the others had come across a strange sight. A small plain about half a day’s travel back bore the scars of harvest, as if an army of reapers had passed through and cut down every stalk of long grass. Now they knew where that grass had gone: beside each orc warrior lay a stack of cut grass. It would take only moments for the warriors to pull the grass over themselves and vanish into the landscape.

“They prepare for an ambush,” said Breff, studying the horde as well. He looked up at Geth suspiciously. “But they face outward, as if they defend the ancestor mound. Who do they expect to come to the ancestor mound?”

Geth clenched his teeth. Over the last two days of travel, he’d managed to avoid the hunter’s questions about what they’d find at the mound. A few hints had convinced him that the orcs were going to root out the dolgrims, but the strategic positioning of the horde made that an obvious lie. Geth let out his breath and told Breff the truth. “Dah’mir,” he said. “Medala believes he will come to the mound tonight when the blue moon rises full at dusk. She says she wants to take her revenge on him.”

The huntmaster’s face tensed, but to Geth’s surprise he looked eager rather than frightened. “If we could, we would show Dah’mir our anger as well.” He paused as if in thought, then asked, “If she intends to take revenge on Dah’mir, why try to stop her?”

“For the orcs,” said Geth. “She’s tricked them into coming here. She used her powers to make sure they’d be here tonight. I think she’s after more than just revenge.”

It wasn’t difficult to figure out where Medala was. There was only one tent set up before the mound, the same symbol-painted tent the kalashtar had occupied among the horde on the Sharvat Vvaraak. A full third of the horde was clustered together before the dark tunnel that pierced the side of the mound and the tent was set up in the middle of it like a commander’s quarters.

“She’s not even trying to conceal her control any more,” Ekhaas said. “Those are the senior Gatekeepers sleeping around her tent!”

She was right. Geth could see Batul among the sleepers outside Medala’s tent. His heart rose and he drew a sharp breath. The amulet of Vvaraak that hung around his neck-the amulet that should have hung around Batul’s neck-felt suddenly light. “When the time is right,” the old druid had said, “you will bring it back and wake me from sleep.”

He glanced at the sun. It was settling down toward the western horizon. Dusk would come very soon, and they had to assume that the orcs would rise before then. They didn’t have much time. “Breff, I need you to get us down there.” He pointed out Batul. “I need you to take us to him.”

Breff’s eyes narrowed in thought and he studied the orcs below, but Ekhaas looked at Geth. “You’re thinking of what Batul said,” she murmured. “Are you certain this is the right time?”

“He’s asleep, isn’t he? He said I would bring the amulet back and wake him from sleep.”

“He might not have meant something so literal. He might have meant you’d free him from Medala’s control.” Ekhaas nodded toward the mound. “If we go down there now, it might be too soon. You can’t depend on prophecy and visions, Geth.”

“Medala is.” He met her amber gaze. “If we don’t go now, when are we going to go? When is the right time? If Medala’s right, Dah’mir will appear soon. This might be our only chance to even get close to Batul. Do you have a better idea?”

Her face tightened, but she made no reply.

Geth turned to Breff. “Can you do it?”

“We’ll need to move like ghosts-but yes.” He slithered backward down from the rise. “Come.”

Not all of the orcs were asleep. Each cluster of orcs had one or two sentries standing watch. Fortunately, not all of the sentries were as alert as they should have been. Breff exchanged quiet words with his hunters, then said to Geth and Ekhaas, “We can kill two of them without a sound. That will give us the opening-”

“No,” Geth said harshly. “We kill no orcs.”

Breff’s lips peeled back to bare his teeth. “It is the safest way and the quickest.”

“No.”

The huntmaster let out a hiss of frustration. “As you wish. Follow us then. Step where we step.”

He led them along the rise until it sank into the ground and they could pass around it without presenting a silhouette to the sky. A particularly lush growth of grass hid a shallow streambed. Breff melted into it, vanishing among the tall stalks. The youngest hunter-they had learned her name was Ahron-went after him, gesturing for Geth to follow her. Another hunter, Medi, took charge of Ekhaas, and the final two hunters, Tag and Bado, assumed position at the rear of their silent procession.

The streambed twisted frequently, and their progress along it seemed to Geth to be painfully slow. They crawled through an unending green maze, each movement made with deliberate care. He could see nothing over the tall grass. Once he tried to part it and peer up to check their position relative to the mound-following the rise had taken them farther from it than he would have liked-but Ahron moved with the speed of a serpent to strike his hand down. He gave her a glare. She gave it right back.

Finally, Breff paused. Geth saw him raise his head briefly, then duck down again. He glanced back at Geth and made two gestures, first flattening his hand out and pressing it down, then putting his fingers over his mouth. Geth understood. Stay low. Keep quiet. He nodded.

What he saw as they left the shelter of the streambed almost made him gasp in spite of Breff’s warning. They were among the Gatekeepers. Geth’s shadow as he stood up stretched across three of the slumbering druids.

His shadow … He twisted his head around and checked the sun. It had slipped well down in the sky. They’d taken too much time. His belly knotted. Maybe he should have listened to Breff’s suggestion. Maybe they should have taken the quicker approach. He glanced at Breff. The huntmaster’s face remained neutral. He pointed across the field of orcs to Batul, then turned away and began picking his way toward him.

Passing among the sleeping orcs seemed even more slow than creeping along the streambed. Being able to see around him, being aware of just how little time they might have left dug into his gut. The horde could wake at any moment. He focused on Batul, trying to block out the blanket swaddled forms around him, the soft snorts and grunts that rose from them, the familiar faces. The proximity of Medala’s tent. Maybe, he thought, they should forget about Batul. Maybe they should seize this chance to strike at Medala directly. It seemed like the same idea was in the Bonetree hunters’ heads. He saw both Breff and Ahron throw frequent glances at the tent. He turned his head for a moment to see if the other hunters were doing the same-

The distraction almost cost him his balance as his foot came down on something unsteady and unyielding. A stone. Maybe a bone from the previous battle. He froze immediately, his breath caught in his throat, every muscle straining to keep him upright.

He didn’t fall. He didn’t make a noise. The moment passed. Ahron gave him a scowl, but Geth ignored her. He looked down at the orcs on either side of him-still asleep-then swept his eyes across the other Gatekeepers nearby.

From a face he knew well, another pair of eyes hazy with waking looked back at him. Orshok and Geth stared at each other.

Ahron saw. She snatched a slim knife from the sheath at her side and raised it to throw.

CHAPTER 20

Geth reacted without thinking, swinging around and slapping at the weapon. His open hand struck Ahron’s moving wrist. The knife flashed-and leaped from her grip as she stumbled back from the force of the blow.

Her foot came down on an orc’s hand. Her falling knife sank into the leg of another. Both orcs woke with incoherent yelps of pain even as Orshok rolled to his feet, shouting an alarm. In less than instant, druids all around them were awake and grabbing for their weapons. Sentries turned and yelled, spreading the alarm.

Breff whirled on Geth, his face wild with rage. “Rond betch! Fool!” He kicked the nearest Gatekeeper in the belly before she could rise. “Get to the old druid on your own!” He ripped his sword free and raised it high. “Sheids sutis! Su Drumas!”

He charged through the still-confused orcs, heading for Medala’s tent. Ahron paused just long enough to pull out a long fighting knife, and then she was after him. Medi, Tag, and Bado pushed past Geth as well, none of them gently. Some the druids went after the hunters, but Orshok’s attention was entirely on Geth. The druids immediately around the shifter had pulled back in confusion. Orshok moved in to take their place, his hunda stick raised across his body.

“What are you doing here, Geth?” he demanded. His eyes were cold, his voice harsh with the disappointment of a trust betrayed, though at least it was his voice and not Medala’s. “Kobus and the others weren’t enough for you? You’ve allied with the Bonetree clan now?”

Geth brought his gauntlet up. Instinct brought his left hand to the hilt of Wrath but he held it back. A sick sort of feeling ground into the pit of his stomach. “You don’t know what’s happening here, Orshok. Just stay back. I need to see Batul.” He took a sliding step in the direction he had last seen the old Gatekeeper.

“You’re not seeing anyone!” Orshok lunged at him, hunda stick spinning. The weapon’s two ends-angled crook and sharp point-blurred. Geth lifted his gauntlet, blocking high, then low, then twisting aside as Orshok tried to hook his ankle with the crook of the stick. His left fist jabbed out and connected with Orshok’s chin. The orc staggered away, then lifted his head, thrust out his jaw, and charged back for more.

Before he could swing again, Ekhaas stepped up beside Geth. Flinging her arms wide, she opened her mouth as if singing a single sustained note. For an instant, it seemed to Geth that although her body and throat strained with the song, there was nothing to hear.

Then a riot of sound burst out among the Gatekeepers before them. Geth clapped his hands to his ears, but the orcs staggered as if they had been struck. Orshok stumbled heavily and slipped to his knees, his eyes wide with shock. Other Gatekeepers were down as well. It didn’t look like any of them had been seriously hurt, though. Geth clenched his teeth and turned quickly, searching for Batul.

The old druid was closer than he had expected. He stood on the edge of a cluster of Gatekeepers. His face was stone. The sick feeling in Geth’s belly grew stronger. “No …” he whispered.

Batul spoke no condemnation, gave no sign of his anger. He just thrust forward his hunda stick, calling out a thick word of command that rang out over the chaos spreading through the camp. Geth felt the power of nature stir in response.

“Batul!” he shouted. “Don’t!” He dragged Wrath from his scabbard as a smell like fresh-turned earth washed over him-before turning wet and fetid as swamp muck. Under his feet, the ground seemed to slip, then to slump.

And abruptly he was sinking up to his hips in thick, clinging mud. It pulled at him and Ekhaas both, and even several Gatekeepers darted back to avoid falling in with them. Geth tried to surge toward Batul and the nearest solid ground, but movement only made the mud’s grasp stronger. Other voices called on nature’s power, and the mud seemed to stir and bulge of its own accord.

The figures that burst up from the mud were roughly human in shape but squat, powerful, and formed from the muck itself. Elementals-small ones, but still deadly. The mud didn’t slow them at all. Ekhaas cursed, drawing her sword and swinging at one. The blade sliced it in half, but the elemental drew new substance from the mud and reformed. When she tried to swing again, it flung a blob of goo at her. The mud spattered across her face, making her choke.

Another of the elementals vanished under the surface of the mud. An instant later, Geth felt something grab his leg in a strong embrace and wrench at. With a yell, he flipped Wrath around and stabbed down.

It was like sinking the Dhakaani blade into clay, except that clay didn’t groan. The mud exploded up, spattering his face and the nearest Gatekeepers, but the grip on Geth’s leg vanished. He turned, grabbed for the amulet around his neck, and held it up for Batul to see. “Look, Batul! This is yours! Take it. It’s time. Wake up!”

Batul’s eyes opened wide. “A thief and a traitor!” he spat. “This is how you repay the respect we gave you?”

Geth’s throat knotted. Maybe this wasn’t the right time. Maybe he had been wrong. Batul’s hunda stick thrust forward again-

Whatever spell he intended to call down was never spoken. The shriek of rage that shattered the air silenced the entire horde. Geth, Ekhaas, Batul, and every Gatekeeper gathered around them turned. Even the elementals grew still.

Between legs and past bodies, Geth could just see Medala’s painted tent. There were bodies on the ground. The Bonetree hunters had cut a bloody path through the orcs. Their swords and knives dripped and their clothes were stained with crimson. Breff had just cut down a druid who had dared step in his way. The orc’s body still twitched, cleaved from breast to belly. The huntmaster hadn’t moved quickly enough, though. The flap of the tent had been torn back. Medala stood in the gap, gaunt as a fever. Power surrounded her. Not a power that Geth could see, but one that he could feel in the back of his mind.

A crystalline ringing, a clashing cascade of sword blades, a broken rhythm. Words that were not words rose from the hollow of his belly, fighting to escape his unwilling throat. Aahyi-ksiksiksi-kladakla-yahaahyi-

Breff howled and leaped for Medala. Tag, Medi, and Bado moved to Medala’s side like wolves flanking their prey. Ahron went low, her long knife flashing.

The kalashtar’s face twisted. The song that plucked at Geth’s mind seemed to pulse-Breff and his adult hunters convulsed and stumbled. Medi and Bado fell, their mouths opening and closing uselessly. Tag dropped to his knees, body wracked with the effort of drawing breath. Geth knew what they were feeling. Medala had done this to him once. It had been as if he’d suddenly forgotten how to breathe, and it had taken all he had just to suck air into his lungs.

But Breff’s eyes were fixed on Medala. He thrust himself at her in single-minded determination. One step. Two steps … He pitched forward onto his face. The tip of his sword hit the ground at her feet.

Ahron froze for an instant and stared-then threw herself at Medala with screaming ferocity. Medala’s harsh gaze flicked to her. Silver-white light flashed.

Blood burst through Ahron’s skin, so much blood that it hung like mist in the air. Her scream rose to a thin shriek, then vanished entirely, and she collapsed as if her bones had lost the strength to support her. The bloody bundle that had been a girl didn’t move again.

Without saying a word, Medala stepped over Breff’s unconscious form and Ahron’s ragged remains. The other hunters toppled to the ground, succumbing to her power, and she swept past them. Gatekeepers moved back out of her way like courtiers before a queen as she advanced.

She stopped beside Orshok, opposite Batul, and looked down at the shifter and the hobgoblin. “Too late,” she said. She looked up at Batul. “Kill the traitors, then prepare for the battle. He’ll be here soon.”

The song in Geth’s head shimmered with her words. Batul bent his head. “Your counsel is good, Medala.”

“Batul!” Geth groaned.

Medala laughed, a brittle sound that almost matched the song of her power. “They’re mine, Geth. They believe what I tell them and do what they think is right. If you hadn’t resisted me, you could still be a hero among them, ready to bring down a dragon instead of dying like a pig in a mudhole.”

He glared at her and bared his teeth. “Better mud than mad!”

She laughed again. “Soon you’ll be dead, Geth, and I’ll be more powerful than you can imagine. Dah’mir has no idea what he created.”

Batul barked a command in Orc. Geth heard it through Wrath. “Morak! Uta! Have the elementals bind him and bring him close!”

Before Geth could struggle, the elementals surged back into motion. Arms of mud wrapped him and Ekhaas like stone. Geth tried to heave against them but couldn’t break the grasp. Ekhaas drew breath to sing out a spell, and a tendril of mud slapped over her mouth. The elementals pushed them both forward to Batul. The old Gatekeeper knelt down on the edge of the mudhole. His good eye was narrow.

“A tomb of stone waits for you,” he said, “but you will not carry the treasures of my sect into death.” He reached out and seized the amulet, ready to tear it from Geth’s neck.

The instant that his fingers closed on the ancient talisman, his body tensed. Both of his eyes opened wide and in the milky depths of his blind eye, Geth thought he saw something stir. The shifter’s breath caught. So did the druid’s. He blinked and his eyes met Geth’s.

His good eye was clear but determined. “You wake me, my friend,” he whispered. “The time is right.”

Sharp pain burned around Geth’s neck as Batul wrenched on the amulet, snapping the cord that held it. Still kneeling, the orc held the amulet high. “Vvaraak, Scaled Teacher,” he shouted, “show truth to your disciples!”

Something in the world … shifted. For an instant, Geth felt very small, like a child in the presence of an incredibly old, incredibly wise grandparent. A gust of wind came welling up out of the south. He smelled flowers and a hint of rotting vegetation. He heard the trill of a songbird, strangely mingled with the hunting cry of an eagle.

All around him, Gatekeepers groaned. Medala shrieked, clutching at her head and the weird crystalline song that had haunted his mind vanished. He twisted his neck around to stare at the kalashtar.

Her eyes were wide, though the pupils were tiny dark holes. Her fingers scraped slowly down from her temples to her cheeks, leaving long red scratches behind-then once again, she laughed. “You’ve freed them!” she said. “You’ve freed them, but you can’t shield them. They will be mine again!”

Geth felt like his heart was ready to stop. Medala’s face creased in concentration. The song of her power crept back into Geth’s head. It swelled into a chorus.

And vanished. Medala’s mouth dropped open. Her eyes lifted to the sky, focused on something far in the distance. “No!” she gasped.

Geth turned back to stare beyond Batul. Over the Gatekeeper’s shoulder, Rhaan shone like a blue pearl above the eastern horizon. There was something else in the eastern sky, though: a speck of brightness moving fast toward them.

“He comes,” said Medala. Her voice was harsh as the edge of a broken knife. Geth looked at her again, his skin scraping in the grasp of the elementals as he turned. Medala’s face was pale, her eyes blazing. Her lips were drawn back. She glared at Geth and Batul. “Darkness take you, then! Fight for me or fight for your lives, you will still fight-and I will still take what is mine!”

Silver-white light flared, and when it faded, Medala was gone.

The voices of the Gatekeepers swirled up around Geth. Some seemed angry. Most just seemed confused. Batul’s voice rose over them all. “Be quiet!” he shouted. “Be quiet! Don’t worry about her! Brothers and sisters, stay close. Morak and Uta, dismiss your creatures and help me get these two out. Someone spread word among the warriors-battle is on us!”

The old druid was still on his knees, the amulet of Vvaraak in one hand. He stretched the other out to Geth, as the elementals melted back into the mud. “Ring of Siberys,” he said. “Well done, Geth. You brought the amulet at the perfect time.”

Geth could only stare at him for a moment until he found words. “The perfect time?” he choked. “Batul, Dah’mir’s coming!”

There wasn’t much comfort in Batul’s grin. “Dagga,” he said, “but this was the right time.” The hands of other druids came down to help Geth out of the mud. The shifter slithered up onto solid land like an eel, and Batul leaned over him. “Medala was right. The amulet was able to break her power, but Gatekeeper magic isn’t able to block it. If you’d brought the amulet to me and I had used it any earlier, she would only have bent us to her will again.”

Ekhaas was hauled up out of the mudhole. She dropped down next to Geth, sputtering and wiping mud from her face, but her ears stood high and her eyes were bright. “But with Dah’mir coming, she couldn’t have fought a battle on two fronts,” she said. “She had to decide who she would fight. Khaavolaar.”

Batul nodded. “Your mind is quick, duur’kala.”

Geth looked away from both of them to a figure waiting nearby-waiting and visibly trembling. Orshok took a step toward him, then hesitated. “I tried to kill you, Geth,” he said. His voice broke.

“Twice,” Geth said. “But it wasn’t you, Orshok. It was Medala.” He climbed to his feet and held his fist out. “She’ll pay.”

Orshok thrust out his tusks and stepped forward to punch his fist against Geth’s. “Kuv dagga,” he said. “For Kobus, Pog, and the others.” He looked up at Geth and grabbed him in an embrace that sent mud squirting out from Geth’s clothes. “Word of Vvaraak, if I’d killed you, Geth, I would have killed myself when I realized what I’d done.”

“Tak, Orshok.” Geth slapped his arm against the young druid’s back. “I’m glad you didn’t have to.”

A hunda stick rapped against his shoulders. “Don’t get too used to living,” Batul said. “This isn’t over. Orshok, find Patchaka. I want you to stand with her and her warband during the battle.”

Orshok pulled away from Geth and started to protest, but Batul growled at him. “Obey your teacher! This is an honor, Orshok!”

The young druid didn’t look happy, but he snatched up his hunda stick and went jogging off. Geth looked around. The carefully set lines of the horde were in disarray, though younger druids like Orshok were slowly beating the orc chieftains and warlords back into position. Closer at hand, the senior Gatekeepers were clustered together, praying and girding themselves for battle. Geth turned to look up at the speck of brightness moving out of the east. It was considerably closer now and he could make out a sleek dark shape surrounded by a ring of fire.

“Rat!” he said. “That’s not Dah’mir! It’s an airship!”

“If Medala thought it was Dah’mir, I’m inclined to believe her,” said Batul. “I suspect Dah’mir is on board.”

“But why would Dah’mir need …?” Geth clenched his teeth and answered his own question. “He went to Sharn to capture kalashtar. Medala said he would succeed there. He’s got his captives on the airship.” He looked down at Batul. “Is there anyway for you to get me up there? If we can free Dah’mir’s captives, we can put an end to this.”

Batul shook his head. “Freeing kalashtar won’t end this, Geth. Stopping Dah’mir won’t end it. There’s only one way to end it.” He held out his hunda stick and pointed.

At the dark entrance in the side of the Bonetree mound. Geth growled.

“The Master of Silence,” he said. “That’s why you sent Orshok away. You’re going to fight the Master of Silence.”

“The seals on his prison must be renewed or his influence will continue.” Batul lowered his stick and leaned on it, looking even older than he was. “The younger Gatekeepers and the horde will try to hold back Dah’mir. The elder Gatekeepers will face the Master.”

“And what do we do?” asked Ekhaas.

Batul looked up at her. “It’s your decision,” he said, “but Gatekeeper and Dhakaani worked together to defeat the daelkyr. I would welcome you both.”

Ekhaas’s ears flicked forward. “Try to keep me away.”

Geth lifted his face toward the airship. Something pulled him toward her. Anyone on board was almost certainly in dire danger. He felt like he should try to help them, but Batul was right. The greatest danger was the Master of Silence. He looked toward the Gatekeepers who had remained nearby. Praying and girding themselves for battle, yes, but possibly for their last battle. Geth squeezed his hand tight around Wrath’s hilt.

“I’m with you,” he said. “What about Medala?”

Batul shook his head again. “I don’t know. If any of what she said is true, she’ll go after Dah’mir. More than that, I couldn’t say-”

A shout interrupted him. A handful of orc warriors dragged forward four limp forms. The Bonetree hunters. “They live!” called the lead warrior. Batul glanced at Geth.

Geth looked at Breff’s unconscious face, then growled, “Get them off the battlefield. Leave them somewhere safe to recover.”

“Breff won’t thank you for that,” said Ekhaas. “His honor-”

Geth snapped his teeth at her. “I’ve had enough of honor!” He turned to Batul. “I’m ready for blood.”

CHAPTER 21

He’d passed through fever and delirium. At times he’d been surrounded by friends, and at other times by enemies. Occasionally, he’d been surrounded by family, which was almost as bad as being surrounded by enemies. He’d run through the vineyards of his youth in the sun, studied by lantern light in the libraries of Wynarn, trained for the Blademarks in the rain under Robrand d’Deneith’s gaze. He’d watched Narath burn, over and over again.

There had been fire. Always fire.

Sometimes he’d seen the deck of a ship with Vennet d’Lyrandar at the helm, singing lustily to a sky that curved above them with no end, while Dah’mir perched in his heron shape on a rail, utterly unmoving. Whenever he saw the ship, the dream had always seemed to end in the same way: a vague memory of Vennet grappling with a half-elf woman, then picking her up and throwing her over the side of the ship.

And Singe had plunged down with her, screaming his way into darkness.

The fever had broken at night. His first coherent memory had been of stars and moons and of the Ring of Siberys, shining in the southern sky as bright as he’d ever seen it. Except that he hadn’t been able to see all of the familiar dusty band at once. He’d had to turn his head to take it all in.

His mind had done him a mercy by slipping into deep sleep before he remembered why that was.

He’d remembered when he woke the next day, though. And he’d discovered that his fevered visions of the ship’s deck, of Vennet and Dah’mir, hadn’t been delirium after all. The elemental ring that encircled Mayret’s Envy burned in a constant, fiery arc above him. He’d been bound on the airship’s deck, his wrists tied behind him, the rope run through a ring driven deep into the wood.

At first Vennet had taunted him. The half-elf seemed animated by a manic energy, though his face was strained. He had stood at the wheel of the airship with his chest bare to the wind and threatened Singe with the power of his “Siberys mark.”

He had no Siberys mark. There could be no pretending that he did. In Tzaryan Keep, Singe had glimpsed Vennet’s naked skin and the dragonmark that spread across his shoulders had been red and inflamed as if Vennet had been scratching it. The inflammation had grown. From shoulder to wrist, across his chest, and along his side, Vennet’s skin was scratched and raw. Wounds oozed clear liquid and yellow-green pus.

No trace remained of the bright pattern that had once crossed Vennet’s shoulders. His back looked like it had been flayed. Vennet had apparently mistaken Singe’s twitch of disgust for awe-struck fear and had ranted that “the powers of the Dragon Below rewarded those who served them.” Singe, he’d promised, would witness the blossoming of his Siberys mark when the dark lords of Khyber were presented with their new servants.

Dah’mir-in heron shape and perched on a rail, just as he had seen in his delirium-had finally silenced him with an impatient hiss.

There was no food. A bucket of clear water had been left within the limited freedom allowed by Singe’s bonds, set out as if for a dog. Singe had crawled to it and stared at his reflection in the water.

His cheeks showed the growth of three days worth of whiskers. The left side of his face was swollen and red. His eye was crusted and sealed with blood. With nothing behind to plump it out, the eyelid seemed loose and sunken. It hurt to smile or frown or turn his head, but it looked like the wound was healing without infection.

Have a good sniff when a battle’s over, and remember that no matter how bad things smell, you’re still breathing.

With a determination that would have done Dandra proud, Singe stuck his face in the bucket and drank.

The hollow in his belly actually seemed to make his thinking sharper-and there wasn’t anything to do besides think. Vennet stayed at the wheel almost constantly, alternating between sullen silence and an animated conversation, apparently with the wind. Dah’mir scarcely moved from his perch on the rail. His feathered face and form were stiff with concentration, as if Dah’mir focused on something unseen. Maybe he did. Singe hadn’t seen him show any difficulty in throwing his domination over Dandra, but there were seventeen kalashtar on board Mayret’s Envy. Even for a dragon, it must have taken some effort to hold all of those minds captive.

Of the kalashtar, there was no sign. Singe presumed that they remained in the hold where he had last seen them. There was no further sign of Virikhad’s presence either, but then he had what he wanted, didn’t he? Dah’mir had succeeded in Sharn.

He dismissed thoughts of escape almost at once. His bonds allowed him enough movement to stand and peer over the ship’s rail. Mayret’s Envy passed above land, not water. They flew west, and from the desolation of the wilderness beneath them, Singe guessed that they were somewhere over Droaam. Even if he had been able to get free, where would he have gone? Dandra might have been able to reach the ground, but he couldn’t. And even if he had been able to, he didn’t like his chance of surviving the wastes of Droaam.

Better to conserve his strength and what spells remained to him and try to escape once they were on the ground. After all, he thought he knew where they were going-and when the wastes of Droaam gave way to the wetlands of the Shadow Marches, he was certain of it.

Back to the Bonetree mound. Back to the ancient prison of the Master of Silence.

Singe knew that the idea should have terrified him. Somehow, it didn’t. It only roused a new anger in him and made his thoughts seem even sharper

Late in the afternoon of the second day after Mayret’s Envy had passed into the Shadow Marches-the eighth day by Singe’s reckoning since the night of Thronehold in Sharn-Dah’mir shook himself and shifted on his perch.

Singe glanced at him, then quickly dropped his gaze and watched the heron from under his eyelid. The ruffling of feathers was more movement than Dah’mir had made in days, and he didn’t seem to be finished. A short while later, his head ducked under his wing and his beak poked among his feathers. If Singe had been looking at a human, he would have said Dah’mir was fidgeting with excitement. He felt an urge to peer over the ship’s rail and search the landscape below for landmarks he recognized. They must have been getting close to the mound.

He forced himself to remain still and watch Dah’mir. Until they were actually on the ground, it didn’t matter how close to the mound they were.

When Dah’mir straightened his long neck again, acid-green eyes that had been dim with concentration flashed bright once more. “Vennet!” he said. “It is time.”

Vennet broke off a one-sided conversation in praise of his own growing power and stared at the bird. “Now, master?”

“Now.” Dah’mir stalked along the rail like a pacing general. “The instant we land, I want to be able to take my master’s new servants to him.”

“But I can’t-” Vennet began to protest.

Dah’mir whirled on him, eyes blazing, and as strange as the image of a heron menacing a man might have seemed, even Singe shrank back in spite of himself.

Vennet flinched. “Master, I’m flying! There was a reason we planned to do this after we landed!”

“Plans change, Vennet. I want no delay.”

“If I leave the wheel, there will be a delay.”

Dah’mir’s wings beat the air. “You are my hands, Vennet! My master commanded that it would be so and you offered yourself to me. Perhaps if you hadn’t thrown our spare pilot overboard you would have had someone to take your place. Now be my hands!”

A dragon’s voice rolled out of the heron’s throat, but Vennet still managed to withstand it, though his voice sounded thin and weak by comparison. “Let Singe do it!” he said.

Dah’mir turned to look at Singe. The wizard felt like he wanted to shrink back even further than he had before. His plans for escape, concocted in the stillness of hours on the airship, were suddenly very far from his mind. Dah’mir nodded slowly, and Singe had a feeling that although his beak couldn’t have managed it, the heron was smiling.

“Yes,” Dah’mir said. “I like that idea. Free him.”

Quick as a leaping flame, Vennet was down from helm and standing over Singe. The half-elf had two swords hanging around his waist. One was his own cutlass; the other was Singe’s rapier. Vennet drew the rapier and pulled Singe to his feet. “Don’t try anything,” he said, “or I’ll make sure you can’t see anything at all.”

Singe held very still as Vennet slid the thin blade of the rapier among the knotted bonds at his wrists. It took him a couple of hard jerks to cut through, but the ropes fell away and Singe’s arms swung free. For a moment, they just hung at his side, numb and useless after being tied for so long. Vennet laughed and swatted at one of them.

Singe turned around and glowered at him. Vennet, in response, punched him hard across the mouth. The blow sent bright pain sparking across Singe’s face and through his still healing eye socket. He staggered, gasping at the intensity of the pain. The sound of a flurry of wings brought him upright again. Vennet was already returning to the helm, the rapier thrust back into his belt, and Dah’mir was settling onto the rail beside Singe.

“Vennet has made it clear what you have to lose, I think,” the heron said with cool indifference to his pain. “I may not have hands, but I could pluck out your remaining eye with ease.”

Singe’s lips pressed tight together for a moment as he tried to shake feeling back into his arms, then he said, “You can’t become human again, can you? We haven’t seen you in your human shape since Geth saw you on the waterfront at Zarash’ak. That was before you went back upriver with Vennet. You were still injured, then. The next time were saw you, you were healed. Was the price of your healing the loss of your human shape?”

Dah’mir blinked. “You’re a clever man, Singe. Too clever.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think lately, thanks to you.”

“No thanks to me. Vennet is the one who begged to keep you alive. You should have been the one to go over the side.” His wings rustled. “But I will have my full power back, and you’ll play a part in it. Go to the forward hatch. We’re going down into the hold.”

A dark fear grew in Singe. “Why?”

“You’re clever,” said Dah’mir. “You’ll figure it out.” He hopped down onto the deck, and his beak darted at Singe’s leg. The sudden pain sent Singe stumbling across the deck. Dah’mir stalked along behind him, pecking and jabbing until Singe ran to keep ahead of him.

There was dried blood on the stairs. Singe felt sure that most of it was his. There was also a lingering odor of rotting flesh below deck, and he remembered the sounds of violence as Vennet murdered one of Biish’s people before the ship rose from the Gathering Light. He had a feeling that whatever role Biish and his gang had been meant to play in the kidnap of the kalashtar, it had not been what Biish had expected.

There was another odor below deck as well, though. It was rank and foul, and Singe had once smelled the same odor on boarding a ship that had been used by slavers. Sweat. Excrement. The stench of people left shackled and unable to fend for themselves.

The everbright lantern that Vennet had opened in the hold of Mayret’s Envy remained unshuttered. Singe saw all of the kalashtar turn their heads as he and Dah’mir entered. They still sat or stood or lay where Singe had last seen them. The only shackles that they bore were shackles of the mind.

Dah’mir spread his wings and flapped up to settle on top of a familiar metal box. Kalashtar eyes followed him. He ignored them. “You know what’s in here,” he said to Singe. “You’re going to use them.”

The bracers. The binding stones. Singe’s throat constricted. “No,” he croaked.

His defiance seemed to amuse Dah’mir. The heron let out a hissing little laugh. “You don’t have a choice,” he said. His acid-green eyes focused on Singe. “Put the bracers on my master’s servants.”

Singe tried to resist the command, but it was like trying to hold back waves with a castle of sand. Dah’mir’s will washed over his. He stepped forward and, as Dah’mir shifted aside, opened the metal box. The nestled bracers within shone up at him, gold plates and wires, pale crystals-and the dark blue-black beauty of the Khyber shards that Taruuzh of Dhakaan had fashioned into prisons for psionic minds so many millennia ago.

“Pick one up,” urged Dah’mir and he did. Dah’mir nodded his head toward one of the kalashtar. “Her first,” he said.

The kalashtar he indicated was an old woman with a face that might have been stern if it hadn’t been slack from Dah’mir’s control. Singe thought he recognized her from Dandra’s description of the kalashtar elders-Shelsatori. His hands trembling, he approached her.

“Find her psicrystal first,” said Dah’mir. “I believe she wears it around her neck.”

He found the crystal. It was blue and beautiful and it seemed to glow with a softness that Shelsatori lacked. It was set in a fine cage of silver, much as Dandra’s psicrystal had been set in a cage of bronze. He wondered if Shelsatori’s crystal had a name.

It didn’t matter. His fingers pried open the cage and extracted the crystal at Dah’mir’s direction, then inserted it into the empty setting above the binding stone on the bracer.

“Now,” Dah’mir said, “place the bracer on her arm.”

Singe clenched his teeth and fought Dah’mir’s control, but it did him no more good than it had the first time. He watched his hands lift Shelsatori’s arm and slide the twisted gold of the bracer onto it.

He felt her body stiffen and, for an instant, saw her eyes focus on him. There was such a depth of loss and agony in them that he couldn’t help crying out. Then that moment of alertness was gone and she sank back into an unresisting trance. Singe let her arm drop and waited for her to rise as a mad servant of the Master of Silence.

Nothing happened. He looked at Dah’mir. “It didn’t work,” he said. “You’ve failed.”

Dah’mir reared back suddenly, spreading his wings for balance, and one of his feet raked across Singe’s cheek. The wizard fell with a cry, but Dah’mir just settled back to his perch. “I didn’t fail,” he hissed. “In the presence of my master, she will wake.” He folded his wings and glared at Singe with hard eyes. “Now-finish what you have begun. A bracer for every kalashtar here, and when we reach the mound you will see the results of what you have done.”

Singe touched the bloody lines on his cheek. “Not what I’ve done,” he said stubbornly. “What you’ve made me do.”

“A difference,” Dah’mir said, “that means nothing to me.”

His will fell over Singe again.

For all his defiance and for all that he knew it was not his own will that moved his hands, Singe was still the one who felt the kalashtar stiffen as the binding stone caught their mind and exchanged it with the mind of their psicrystal. He was the one who fastened Dah’mir’s bracers around their arms. He was the one, he knew, who condemned them to madness.

By the sixth bracer, Singe’s eye was wet with barely suppressed tears. By the tenth, his hands were shaking in spite of Dah’mir’s control. By the thirteenth, he was numb. He wasn’t even certain that Dah’mir still controlled him. Finding a psicrystal, placing it in the bracer, placing the bracer on an arm had become a routine. The passing of a kalashtar under his fingers became just another rip in his soul.

He’d killed people. He was a mercenary. But doing this, he felt like a murderer.

He picked up the final bracer in the metal box and turned to the last kalashtar at the very back of the hold.

Moon.

“Ah, yes,” said Dah’mir. “I remember him. You left him for us at the arena, unconscious and half-mad already. Very convenient. What happened to him?”

Singe glared at him over his shoulder. “Keeper take you, Dah’mir.” He bent over Moon. “I hope you’re still in there, Virikhad,” he said under his breath. “And I hope this hurts even more the second time.”

Moon wore his psicrystal in a leather bracer wrapped around his left arm. Singe reached for it-and as he did, a voice trickled into his head through kesh.

Take out the binding stone.

Singe froze for an instant and looked at Moon’s face. His eyes were as vacant as those of all the kalashtar had been, yet there was no denying the presence of the voice in his head-though he could certainly deny its request. Virikhad! So you are still there. His fingers closed on Moon’s psicrystal and ripped it from its setting. What’s wrong? Are you trapped in there? Don’t ask me to help you! He stopped. Maybe I should tell Dah’mir about you.

You wouldn’t gain anything. Virikhad’s voice was cold but calm. He would only see an ally.

And how do you know that?

Because he doesn’t know what he has created, Virikhad said. A part of his power is in us. He can’t shut us out. We can exert some influence on him, pushing his ideas in the direction we want. A sneer entered his voice. Did you think he changed his plan of when to use the bracers on a whim?

You did that? Singe’s eyes narrowed. Wait-Who’s we?

Virikhad didn’t answer. The time is coming, Singe. Dah’mir had to succeed in Sharn, but he’ll fail here. Take the binding stone out of my bracer. I promise you, Dah’mir won’t notice. Only do it quickly!

Why? Singe asked, but he didn’t get an answer to that question either.

“Master!” Vennet’s frantic voice echoed down from above. “The Bonetree mound is in sight, but we’re not going to be alone when we get there.”

“What?” Singe glanced back in time to see Dah’mir’s feathered form stiffen. “Vennet, what’s happening? Vennet?” There was no response from Vennet, just the sound of boots racing back to the helm. Dah’mir glared at Singe. “Hurry! Finish with that one!”

Singe looked down at Moon again. Take the binding stone out of the bracer, Virikhad said. Dah’mir will fail-and I’ll even give you Munchaned back.

The sensation of kesh fell away. Singe ground his teeth together-and made his decision. If you’re lying, Virikhad, he thought, I swear I’ll come back from the dead to hunt you down.

It was the work of a moment to pull the binding stone from its delicate setting and slip it into a pouch on his belt at the same time as he placed Moon’s psicrystal into the bracer. Then he put the bracer onto the young kalashtar.

Moon stiffened just as all the others had. Virikhad’s influence? Singe turned to face Dah’mir. “It’s done,” he said. He didn’t need to feign the bitter rage he felt. He might have saved Moon, but who could tell what would happen to the other sixteen kalashtar?

“Good. Now get back up to the deck. Quickly!”

It was tempting to move slowly on the stairs if only to inconvenience Dah’mir. Once again, the heron stalked awkwardly in his wake, driving him onward with prods from his sharp beak. Every jab just stirred greater anger in Singe and he might have stopped and refused to move-he might even have tested just how tough a dragon in heron form was-if he hadn’t wanted to know as badly as Dah’mir what was happening at the mound.

The answer was obvious as soon as he reached the deck and peered over the side.

They were coming up fast on the Bonetree mound. Approached from ground level or along the river that ran nearby, the mound was an astounding sight, rising proud and massive from the flatness around it. From above, though, it just looked like a wart on the land-a wart painted angry red by the setting sun.

Spread out before it were hundreds of small shapes milling around in chaos. The raking light of the sun struck sparks from the blades of weapons shaken in the direction of the airship and Singe could just catch the faint whisper of war cries.

“Twelve moons!” he gasped.

“Orcs!” Vennet shouted from the helm. “Orcs, master! We can’t land!”

Dah’mir settled onto the rail close to Singe and glared down as if he were able to see every detail of the distant warriors. “Gatekeepers! How could they have-” His head came up and his acid-green eyes turned on Singe. “There was always one of you missing, wasn’t there?” he said in a hiss. “Geth was never in Sharn!”

Singe gave him an angry grin. “Aye!” he said. “But he’s probably down there!”

“He won’t be for much longer.” Dah’mir’s voice rose. “Vennet, keep the ship high while I deal with this.” He gave Singe another look and his eyes narrowed. “And kill our guest before he causes trouble. We have enough distractions now.”

Singe’s gut rose.

“But master-” Vennet began in protest.

“Just do it, Vennet!” Dah’mir screamed-and flung himself over the rail.

CHAPTER 22

His small dark form dropped rapidly, falling away from and behind the airship.

Then abruptly he was no longer small. A dragon’s form cut the air and a dragon’s powerful wings scooped at the wind. In just a few wing beats, Dah’mir caught up to the speeding airship, then surged ahead of her as the deck tilted and Vennet guided the ship higher into the sky. A roar burst from Dah’mir and he dived at the orcs before the Bonetree mound.

Singe couldn’t tear himself away from the terrible spectacle that unfolded below. The light of dusk that struck Dah’mir’s blackened copper scales turned him into a massive bolt of dark, unholy flame. The milling chaos of the orcs seemed to come together into order at the sight of the danger falling from above. Clumps of warriors condensed out of the madness, each standing firm. Dah’mir’s wings dipped and he turned, angling toward the largest concentration of the warriors, a massive cluster that stood before the entrance to the mound. Arrows rose in a small dark cloud to meet him, but the dragon ignored them.

His massive jaws opened and a gout of acid poured out to wash through the heart of the cluster as Dah’mir swept overhead. His wings tilted again, and he soared up once more-and in his wake, orc warriors turned on smoking ground and unleashed another volley of arrows. Around them, other orcs that must have been druids lowered their hunda sticks.

“Yes!” Singe shouted. “Yes!” When Dah’mir had revealed himself during the first battle before the Bonetree mound, he’d caught everyone by surprise. This time, the orcs were ready with Gatekeeper magic to turn aside his acid. Other magic shimmered as well. The air seemed to fold, and half a dozen eagles burst out of nowhere to pursue the dragon-gigantic eagles with wingspans of easily ten paces. Roaring in fury at an easy victory denied, Dah’mir whirled in the air. His jaws snapped at one eagle, caught it, and shook like a dog shaking a rat, then let the limp body drop to the ground below. He dived to make another pass at the orc warriors.

But Singe wasn’t the only one watching the battle. A scream of outrage near the stern of the airship dragged him back. He spun around.

Vennet stood at the ship’s helm, pushing the ship in a wide upward spiral though he leaned to see what was going on below. Singe’s movement brought his head up. For a moment, the two men stared at each other-then Singe reached inside himself and drew up one of the last spells remaining to him. Hot words of magic sprang from his tongue and his fingers flicked toward Vennet.

Quick as he was, Vennet was quicker and he had the entire airship to use as a weapon. Before the spell could take shape, the half-elf howled and spun the wheel.

The deck pitched hard to the side. Singe’s feet slid under him and he went staggering. Half-formed sparks scorched his hands as his concentration broke and his spell faltered and faded. Vennet spun the wheel back. Singe rolled the other way, almost falling this time. The loss of his eye made it hard to compensate for the rocking of the deck. His fingers scraped across wood as he tried to regain his balance.

Vennet’s laugh made a sound like breaking glass, another harsh sound in the assault on Singe’s ears. Dah’mir’s bellows. The screeches of the Gatekeepers’ summoned eagles as they died. Distant shouts from the orcs. A closer roaring of flame as the elemental bound to Mayret’s Envy burned with furious joy at the airship’s wild tossing and speeding ascent. Vennet’s hands tightened on the wheel and his eyes narrowed in concentration.

Singe knew something of the way airships were controlled. The real control wasn’t in how the wheel was turned-the wheel was just a prop, a remnant of more conventional waterborne ships. True control lay in the captain’s touch on the wheel and in his command of the elemental bound into the ring around the ship’s belly.

And at Vennet’s silent command, the elemental hissed and crackled like fire in an alchemist’s furnace. The angle of the ship’s climb became steeper and with it the angle of the deck. Singe clenched his teeth. No point wasting precious magic. He pushed off from the deck and dashed at Vennet, running with the cant of the deck instead of trying to fight it.

Vennet’s laughter turned into a curse. He pulled one hand from the wheel and thrust it at Singe. “Sweep him off my ship!” he commanded.

Singe was ready for the blast of wind this time. He threw himself to the side, out of the gale’s path, and felt only a swirling breeze as he rolled back to his feet and leaped at Vennet. The half-elf tried to draw his cutlass, but Singe hit him before he even had his free hand on the weapon’s hilt, carrying him backward and slamming him to the deck.

Vennet’s other hand jerked from the wheel as Singe tore him away. Obedient to the half-elf’s last command, however, the ship continued to climb. Both Singe and Vennet tumbled toward the ship’s stern. Vennet shouted and tried to tear himself away, but Singe held onto him, punching at him as best he could. The smell of rot was thick around Vennet, though, and the foul pus that oozed from his broken skin made it slick. Vennet jabbed a fist at his blind side and slid free as Singe’s grasp weakened for a moment.

But Singe had what he wanted. His hand was on the hilt of his rapier where it hung from Vennet’s waist, and as Vennet pulled away, the motion drew the blade from the scabbard. Singe staggered, found his balance, and thrust.

The point of the blade opened a long red gash along the side of Vennet’s left forearm before he could reach the wheel. The mad man gasped and recoiled, then his face twisted and he drew his cutlass. Metal rang on metal as he caught Singe’s next attack and turned it aside.

Singe fought with a frenzy that came on him like a second fever. He could already feel his strength fading, sapped by hunger and captivity. He needed to make every blow count.

But Vennet’s blows were frenzied too. His heavy, chopping attacks had no grace or dexterity, but they had the strength of madness behind them. Vennet threw himself into the fight with ferocity. Spittle ran from the corner of his mouth and streaked across his cheek. He swung his cutlass hard, aiming for Singe’s blind side, and Singe had to turn and turn again to escape him. He got his left side against the rail for protection, but Vennet had the better of him now. The ship’s wheel forgotten, the half-elf forced him step by step up the sloping deck toward the bow.

A roar broke out somewhere below them, so loud and angry that both men glanced over the side for an instant, swords still crossed. Singe was shocked to see how high the airship had flown. The sweep of the Shadow Marches lay spread out before them.

Dah’mir had finally noticed their uncontrolled ascent, however. Wings straining, acid-green eyes bright in the gathering dusk, he climbed after them. “Vennet! Bring the ship down!”

Singe swung back to Vennet, ready for a renewed attack-and froze. The other man was staring past him with a look of alarm replacing the rage on his face. Singe twisted, looking over his shoulder to see what he was staring at.

The kalashtar had come onto the deck. They stood before the hatch that led below, eerily silent. Their stares, though still blank, were no longer turned toward Dah’mir. Instead, they turned to the young kalashtar who stood at their head. Moon-or Virikhad. Pinprick eyes met Singe’s.

“What are they doing here?” Vennet choked. His free hand grabbed for Singe’s arm. “What have you done?”

Silver-white light flared near the stern. Both Singe and Vennet turned toward it and Singe’s hollow gut wrenched. Before the airship’s helm stood Medala, gaunter than ever, her gray hair wilder. Her pupils were the same pinpricks of black as Moon’s.

He and Dandra might have guessed that she was still alive, but actually seeing Medala again was like a blow. Fear burst inside Singe, and he acted on reflex, flinging out a hand and shouting a word of magic. Flames leaped from his hand in a searing blast.

Medala simply winked out in another silver-white flash. The magical fire washed over the helm and the wood of the wheel flared and burned, charring away in a heartbeat-

Singe’s already knotted stomach seemed ready to turn into a heavy stone. Vennet let out a wail and rushed for the burning, useless wheel. A shudder ran through the ship. The great elemental ring flared with new intensity, and they began to climb even more quickly.

In the same instant, Medala reappeared with another flash to stand before Moon. Ignoring everything happening around them, the two kalashtar looked at each other.

“You did well,” Medala said.

“Dah’mir succeeded in Sharn,” Virikhad said with Moon’s voice. “And here?”

Medala’s face twisted. “There are complications. We must hurry.” She held out her hand.

Moon’s rose to meet it, and when their fingers touched, it seemed as if a silver-white spark leaped between them as a strange crystalline ringing shimmered on the air. A moan like someone waking in great pain escaped Moon’s lips and he went limp. Medala released his fingers and let him fall to the deck, then drew a deep breath. “Together,” she said, and it seemed to Singe that he heard two voices emerge from her mouth.

Then she-and Singe and Vennet-whirled as Dah’mir came rushing up past the side of the ship. The sound of the dragon’s wings was like the clap of thunder. His eyes burned.

Even as his legs folded under him, some part of Singe’s mind wondered if any other living soul had ever seen such a look of utter surprise on the face of a dragon. Dah’mir stared at Medala with wide eyes and an open mouth. Medala gave him a grim smile. “Too late, Dah’mir,” she said.

The light that burst around her was blinding. Singe flung up an arm to shield his eyes, but the brightness faded in an instant-and Medala and the kalashtar were gone with it. Only Moon remained, sprawled on the deck.

Dah’mir’s roar shook the ship. His forelegs crashed down, hooking over the rails, and the entire vessel listed and sank as his weight hung from her. His great head thrust at Singe. “Where has she gone?” he demanded. Fetid breath stinking of blood and acid choked Singe. His ears felt like they would burst from the dragon’s shout. He couldn’t have answered if he’d known, but Dah’mir’s eyes narrowed and something flashed in his eyes. “By the progenitors,” he hissed.

He kicked away with such force that timbers cracked and the airship shot sideways at the same time that she bounced upright and began to climb again. Singe clung to the ship’s rail to avoid being thrown across the deck. Roaring his anger, Dah’mir arced away from the ship, folding his wings and plummeting back toward the battlefield. His wings snapped open at the last moment to slow his dive and Singe saw him thrust his forelegs out. Sparks of red flashed from the Eberron dragonshards embedded there.

Tangled blue arcs of lightning leaped from his claws to rake the twilight battlefield. Against the searing flash, Singe saw the dark clusters that were orc warriors scatter into specks. As they scattered, Dah’mir’s form shrank as he transformed into a heron once more. From so great a height, the black bird might have vanished into the shadows of gathering night-but Singe could guess where Dah’mir had gone.

The flaring arcs of lightning had pointed the way to the dark mouth of the tunnel that pierced the Bonetree mound.

“Master! Master!” Vennet was at the rail, shaking with impotent rage. “Dah’mir, help me!”

The crackling of the fiery ring around the ship was like a song of freedom, as if the elemental bound within it knew that it could no longer be controlled. Singe’s arms and legs felt stiff as wood, but he turned his head to look up at the sky and wondered just how high they might go.

Then the air nearby shimmered, parted, and Dandra stepped out.

Singe couldn’t think of when he’d ever seen anyone look so beautiful. Her red-brown skin glowed under the light of the ring and in the sunlight that still reached over the rim of the world below. Her hair flowed in the wind of the ship’s passage like a cascade of black water. Her dark eyes flashed, and her jaw was set with fiery determination. For an instant, he thought she had to be some kind of dream, but then Vennet let out a gasp and stared at her too.

Dandra ignored the half-elf. Her feet pushed off from the deck, and she skimmed through the air to Singe’s side. He saw her face tighten with anguish at the sight of his injured face, but she didn’t pause or hesitate. “Can you stand?” she asked, offering him her hand.

He took it, but the only word that he could force out of his mouth was “How?” She’d used the long step to reach him, but he knew her mastery of the power wasn’t enough to let her travel far.

She pointed in answer, and Singe’s jaw dropped.

The circling of Mayret’s Envy had brought the southern sky into view. Against the glow of the Ring of Siberys, another airship stood out a short distance away, encircled with a ring of streaming cloud instead of fire and racing to keep up with the out of control ship.

“Twelve moons!” he gasped. “Where did you get-?”

“Biish’s second target!” Dandra said as she hauled Singe to his feet. “A second airship to steal if he couldn’t get the first one for Dah’mir. Are the captive kalashtar still on board?”

“No, only Moon. Medala-”

Dandra took his chin in her hand and turned his face to hers. Kesh opened between them. Show me, said Dandra.

It took only a moment for him to show her what he had seen and heard. Her eyes hardened. “Light of il-Yannah.” Her arm wrapped around his shoulders and drew him close. “Hold tight. We’re leaving.”

The invisible pressure of vayhatana wrapped around him before he could even blink. Over Dandra’s shoulder, he saw Moon’s body rise and move closer, also caught by the force of her will.

But with the young kalashtar came Vennet, racing across the deck. “Save me!” he shouted. “You have to save me!”

Singe turned his head and bared his teeth at him. “The Master of Silence rewarded you with the Siberys Mark of Storm, didn’t he?” he said as smoothly as the hatred that twisted inside him would allow. “Command the wind to save you.”

Vennet’s face brightened. “Storm at dawn! Yes!” He turned to face into the wind of the airship’s passage and raised his arms. “Come!” he shouted, his hair whipping around his face. “Come! Your master commands it! Carry me to safety!”

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen-then Vennet’s feet rose from the deck of the ship.

A grin of triumph spread across his face. “I bear the Mark of Siberys!” he said. His voice rose into a howl. “The wind answers me! I command the storm!” He kicked himself away from the deck and drifted effortlessly toward the ship’s rail. The fear that had been in his eyes turned to rage as he glared at Singe and Dandra. “You will pay for your defiance of the powers of Khyber. Try to escape! I will blast you from the air!”

He pushed himself from the rail to stand firm on the empty air beyond and spread his arms again. “Vennet d’Lyrandar,” he crowed, “controls the skies!”

“Enjoy them,” said Dandra and through kesh, Singe felt her release a small part of her concentration.

There was confusion in Vennet’s eyes as he dropped and terror in the scream that faded into the distance below. Dandra’s arm tightened around Singe. He squeezed her back, then glanced at her.

“How do we get down?” he asked.

Her lips pressed together. “The same way,” she said and called out with her mind, Mithas, be ready!

The unseen threads of vayhatana surged, flinging them off the deck of the airship, and they fell. The elemental ring of the ship passed over their heads in a roaring blaze. Singe squeezed his eyes shut and screamed.

Then something grabbed them and held them steady in mid-air. Singe opened his eyes. He still clung to Dandra, Dandra still clung to him, Moon floated silently next to them, and the other airship was slowing to a stop just below. On her deck stood Mithas d’Deneith, a wand in his grasp pointing at them. He gestured with the wand, and they began to sink. Singe remembered the wand the sorcerer had displayed over Sharn and his boast that he could save Ashi from falling. He was pleased to see that for once Mithas hadn’t just been boasting.

Ashi and Natrac were on the deck as well and reached up for them as they descended. There was another person on the ship. Standing at the helm was a half-elf woman whose face had haunted Singe’s fevered dreams. He stared at her then looked at Dandra. “Vennet threw her overboard in Sharn!”

“I thought she was you and caught her with vayhatana,” Dandra said. “She’s Benti. Stealing the second airship was her suggestion. By the time we had her, your ship was out of sight. We guessed at where Dah’mir would be taking the kalashtar, but the Bonetree mound isn’t on any airship charts-we had to fly to Zarash’ak then follow the river north. We’re lucky Dah’mir was too busy fighting the orcs and chasing your ship to notice our approach.”

Singe barely heard her explanation. He blinked at Dandra. “Biish’s Benti?”

Her lips curved. “Not exactly.”

Then they were on the deck, and everyone was bustling around him and Moon. Dandra made him sit down. Natrac thrust a flask into his mouth, holding it there until Singe had drained the contents. The liquid inside was viciously bitter, but Singe felt the tingle of magical healing almost immediately. New strength flowed into his limbs, and while his belly remained empty, he thought like he could go another day before he needed a meal.

The potion didn’t bring his eye back-not that he had expected it would. It would take more magic than could be found in a potion to do that. Natrac glanced at the empty eye socket. “Vennet’s work?” he asked. Singe nodded. The half-orc grimaced and twisted his knife-hand so the long blade flashed. “Too bad you got to him before me,” he said.

A scarf fluttered down over Singe’s head. “Cover it up,” Mithas said in distaste.

Singe pulled the scarf from his face and looked up at the sorcerer. “You’re the last person I would have expected to come on a rescue mission.”

Mithas’s expression was sour. “I’m protecting my investment,” he said. “Ashi insisted on coming. She pointed out that our bargain was that she would let me take her to the lords of Deneith after everyone was safe. I didn’t realize she included you in that.”

“As long as you sell people out to advance yourself, Mithas, you’re not going to understand someone like Ashi.” Singe pushed himself to his feet and away from the sorcerer. “I want to see Moon.”

“That’s good,” said Ashi, stepping up to them. “He’s awake and he wants to see you.” She paid scant attention to Mithas.

Moon was crouched on the other side of the deck, knees drawn up to his chest and rocking back and forth. Dandra had put a blanket over his shoulders, but he kept shrugging it off. He looked up as Singe approached, and the wizard saw that there was something in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. For the first time, he was seeing Moon alone, not Moon with Virikhad’s presence behind him.

The young kalashtar tried to rise, but Dandra held him down. Singe dropped to kneel beside him. He glanced at Dandra, his lips shaping a silent question-what did Moon want? She shrugged. Singe met Moon’s gaze. “You wanted to see me?” he asked.

“I wanted to say thank you. For not using the binding stone on me. You could have used it and trapped Virikhad, but you didn’t.” Moon swallowed. His face was pale and haunted. “I remember everything that happened. I remember what he did-” His voice caught.

“It’s not your fault, Moon,” said Dandra. “You’re safe now.”

“No!” Moon said sharply. Anger crossed his face. “I’m not safe. No one is safe. I still have a connection to him.” He struck a fist against his ear. “I can still hear the song!”

“What?” Dandra sat up straight.

Singe frowned. “Are you sure it’s not just something you remember?”

Moon nodded. “I don’t know how,” he said. “Maybe he was inside me for too long. Maybe he got too close to my mind. The song is still there. I can hear it. It connects us. I don’t think he knows about it-or if he does, he doesn’t care.” There was a tremble in his voice. “You know how he used his powers through me? I think I can still use them. When he and Medala took the others away, I knew how to follow them with my mind. I felt them bend space.” He took a deep breath. “I know where they are.”

“Where?” Singe asked.

The young kalashtar rose to his knees and pointed through the rail of the ship directly at the Bonetree mound. “There,” he said. “Under there. Deep under.”

Singe looked at Dandra. “Dah’mir said the kalashtar would wake in the presence of the Master of Silence. Do you think Medala and Virikhad are trying the same thing?”

She nodded, then asked him, “Do you think we still have a chance of stopping them?”

“You have to,” said Moon. He turned away from the rail and stared at them. “I’ve felt Virikhad’s mind. I know I wouldn’t want to be like that.” His voice broke. “Light of il-Yannah, I will do whatever it takes to make that song stop!”

The anger in him made Singe jerk back but Dandra reached out and took the young kalashtar’s hand. “Easy, Moon,” she said soothingly. “I’ve felt Medala’s mind, and I touched the killing song in Erimelk. I know I what you’re feeling. But I’ve also been in the tunnels under the mound. I don’t know if we’d be able to find them in time-and Dah’mir’s down there now too.”

Moon’s jaw tightened. “I can take you right to them. I can use Virikhad’s power against him.”

Dandra’s breath hissed between her teeth. “Are you certain? The long step isn’t something to use lightly.”

“I’m certain,” said Moon. “And I have to try. I don’t want his song in my head!” He looked at her, then at Singe. “I can take both of you. Maybe someone else too.”

“Me,” said Ashi.

Singe turned around. The hunter, Natrac, and Mithas had gathered around them. Ashi’s dragonmarked face was determined.

Singe nodded, and Mithas let out a cry of protest.

Ashi glared at him. “I said I’d go with you when this was over and everyone was safe. The lords of Deneith can wait!”

“There’s no way to reverse what Dah’mir has already done to the kalashtar,” said Dandra. “The only way for the kalashtar mind to escape the psicrystal is through madness.” She looked from Ashi to Moon. “Whether they’ve already awakened as servants of Xoriat or not, if we want to release them, we’re going to have to kill them.”

Both Ashi and Moon nodded. Dandra’s dark eyes turned to Singe. The wizard’s heart felt like ice. “I’ve already killed them once,” he said. “I owe it to them to do it again.”

CHAPTER 23

Torches made from burning reeds soaked in sweet oils cast a wavering light on the tunnel walls. The illumination wasn’t for the Gatekeepers’ benefit. The orcs and Ekhaas could have navigated the maze beneath the Bonetree mound without any light at all. Nor, Geth knew, was it for his, though he would have been as blind as a human without it. No, the torches, which burned with a greenish glow and gave off a thin smoke that smelled of cut grass, had only one purpose.

They held back the dolgrims.

The vile creatures seemed to be everywhere. As the light that surrounded the procession of druids advanced, they retreated into the darkness ahead. Where the tunnel was wide enough, they clustered in the shadows to the procession’s sides. When the light had passed, they closed in behind. As the Gatekeepers entered a new passage where the ceiling soared high overheard, Geth caught movement above and looked up.

Dolgrims crouched on ledges like spectators in the balcony of an arena. They shifted back from the light, but held their ground. Tiny dark eyes watched the intruders. Four bandy arms fondled sharp knives and spiked maces, even simple stones. Two wide mouths-one in the squat head that rose like a hump on each creature’s shoulders, the other in what should have been its chest-drooled and twitched. The passage, like all of the others beneath the mound, echoed with constant muttering as the dolgrims spoke to one another-and to themselves, each mouth taking sides in an unending conversation.

When the gibbering had first emerged from the shadows, Geth had tried listening to it. He’d been holding Wrath and the ancient sword allowed him to understand the weird tongue spoken by the creatures of Khyber just as it let him understand Orc and Goblin. After only a few moments, however, he’d had to sheathe the weapon, sickened by what he’d heard. The dolgrims spoke only of violence, violation, and depravity.

Ekhaas continued to listen, though it was clear she didn’t understand what they were saying. Her ears twitched with curiosity. “Their language almost sounds like Goblin,” she said.

“They almost look like goblins,” Geth grunted.

“They may have been goblins,” said Batul. “The oldest legends of the Daelkyr War, from the time when the daelkyr first burst from Xoriat to invade Eberron, say that the daelkyr brought creatures like the mind flayers with them, but that they also crafted new creatures from the races they encountered here. Some of the legends hold that the dolgrims were created from goblins.”

“What about dolgaunts?” asked Geth.

The old druid’s mouth closed tight for a moment, and he glanced at Ekhaas, then murmured, “Hobgoblins.”

Ekhaas’s ears pressed back flat against her skull.

A rock clattered somewhere close. One of the other Gatekeepers grunted something in Orc. Batul grimaced. “The dolgrims above are growing bolder. We need to get out of this passage.” He put his hand on the amulet of Vvaraak-it hung around his neck once more-and pointed with his hunda stick. “This way.” he said.

When they’d first entered the mound-the nine most senior Gatekeepers from the horde, Geth, and Ekhaas-the guidance that the amulet provided had hardly been necessary. Closer to the surface, cross-tunnels and side-passages had been uncommon and the floors of the tunnels they had followed had been worn smooth from use. More tunnels appeared the deeper they went, however. The floor became slick-smooth, polished by the passage of countless dolgrim feet over many, many years. Batul had kept them to their path though, the amulet guiding him toward the great seal.

They left the high passage for a tunnel that was low but broad. Dolgrims flowed past them in the shadows to either side, lithe in spite of their deformities. Geth clenched his teeth. “How much farther?” he asked.

“The influence of Xoriat bleeds through into this place,” said Batul. “The great seal is like a torch in the fog: it’s close, but you can’t tell what’s between you and it.”

There was a sudden exclamation from the Gatekeeper who had taken the lead in their procession. Ekhaas’s ears rose. “She says there are no dolgrims ahead of her. They’ve fallen away.”

Geth peered into the shadows once more. The dolgrims had indeed stopped moving. They stood still now, watching the procession move past them. Even their muttering seemed muted. Geth dropped his hand to Wrath. Whispers sprang at him.

“… they enter the dark place.”

“They won’t come back.”

“We could follow.”

“We wouldn’t come back …”

They passed the last of the dolgrims. The walls and ceiling of the tunnel vanished. The green-tinted light of the reed torches was a pool of light moving through darkness. The cavern they had entered was vast. Even at the edges of his vision, Geth could see nothing but the smooth floor stretching into the gloom. He glanced at Ekhaas. “You see anything?” he asked softly.

She shook her head.

“The seal lies ahead,” said Batul. Even his confident voice was dwarfed by the space around them. No one else spoke. They moved in silence.

The deep quiet was even more eerie than the muttering of the dolgrims had been. Around Geth’s neck, the collar of black stones grew icy cold. Geth drew Wrath. The feel of the byeshk sword in his left hand and the weight of his great gauntlet on his right arm were reassuring, solid anchors in a place that felt increasingly as if it were no longer a part of the world.

Then something loomed ahead. It took several more paces before Geth saw what it was: a wall of rock that stretched up and to either side, vanishing into darkness just as the floor of the cavern did. Directly ahead of the procession, a narrow passage pierced the rock.

They all stopped and stared at it. After a long moment, Batul spoke in hushed tones. “Surely we are the first of our kind to walk this path since before the dawn of this age.” He slipped the amulet from around his neck and pressed it to his lips with hands that trembled. “Vvaraak lend us the strength and wisdom to do what must be done,” he prayed. “Shield us from the madness that has waited for nine thousand years.”

In the midst of the dark and silent cavern, the breath of a warm breeze stirred. Geth’s hair drifted back from his face, and his heart seemed to lift. The Gatekeepers murmured a collective invocation to the ancient founder of their sect, and even Ekhaas looked awed by the gentle but powerful force that touched them. Batul lowered the amulet. The procession started forward to the passage into the rock-

— just as silver-white light flashed somewhere on its other side. The glare that burst through the passage and fell upon them was dimmed by distance, but after so long in the tunnels it was still blinding. Geth saw only a bright, jagged line in the darkness, like lightning through a storm. He bit back a cry and twitched his head away, but the light had already printed itself on his eyes in hazy afterimages. He blinked furiously, trying to clear it away.

“Medala’s light!” Ekhaas hissed. “She’s back!”

“Extinguish the torches!” Batul commanded in a whisper.

Reeds ground against rock. Geth might have been afraid that Medala would hear the quiet noise, but there were noises coming from the other side of the passage now too. Groans. Whimpers. The sound of a body falling to writhe against stone. Medala wasn’t alone. Ekhaas’s ears twitched. “Other kalashtar! Khaavolaar, when she vanished she must have gone to the airship.” She bared her teeth. “This is her revenge against Dah’mir!”

“By bringing any captives he had into the mound?” Geth growled under his breath as understanding woke in him. “By bringing servants to the Master of Silence first!”

The last of the green light vanished, and for a moment Geth stood in utter darkness made even deeper by the false glow of the afterimages in his visions. He could see light, but it illuminated nothing. He was completely blind.

Before his fear could turn into panic, Medala’s harsh voice-or rather her voice and another in a strange unison-called out a word. Geth’s sight returned as a dim blue radiance blossomed beyond the passage. He saw one of the Gatekeepers turn to Batul, and Wrath translated her words. “We can’t block her power! What do we do now?”

“What we must,” said Batul. “The Master of Silence has caused the creation of one servant who resists our magic. Soon he may have more. We can’t stop now-but we don’t stand alone.” His good eye fixed on Ekhaas. “On the Sharvat Vvaraak, you showed that duur’kala magic can still block Medala’s power.”

Ekhaas’s eyes darted around the procession and she bared her teeth. “I wouldn’t be able to shield all of us.”

“Shield yourself and Geth, then.” Batul looked at the shifter too. “Stop Medala, and we will be free to act.”

Geth’s gauntlet creaked as he curled his hand into a fist and nodded. Batul tightened his grip on his hunda stick. “Sing, Ekhaas. We’ll hold Medala’s attention.” He raised the stick. “Gatekeepers, follow!”

The druids dashed for the passage in the rock face, their shadows stretching out behind them to cover Geth and Ekhaas. Before the last of the Gatekeepers was within, Geth heard Medala’s shout of surprise and hatred. A cry of challenge broke out from among the orcs, wordless and angry. Geth whirled to face Ekhaas. “Sing!”

Song rippled from her lips, and her face stilled as the magic settled over her first. As she sang, Geth closed his eyes, reached into himself, and shifted. The familiar sense of invulnerability poured into his veins at the same time as Ekhaas’s spell turned to him, and the exhilaration of shifting mingled with the sharpness and clarity of her song. Geth drew a breath so deep it felt like his chest would crack. When he opened his eyes, everything seemed hard-edged and distinct.

Two sounds pierced that moment. One came from the passage, a wavering groan escaping an orc’s throat as a Gatekeeper fell to Medala’s power. The othercame across the dark cavern like echoes across a lake at night.

The dolgrims were shouting, their voices rising in terrible joy. Waves of sound grew into a tide that swept closer with each moment. Geth couldn’t have picked words out of the tumult, but Wrath did-two simple words, repeated over and over again as soldiers might chant the nickname of a conquering general.

Green Eyes.

Dah’mir was coming.

Geth spun around and threw himself into the narrow passage. The floor was rough, the walls sharp-edged, the far opening of the passage little more than a crack in the rock. Geth scarcely noticed. He thought he heard Ekhaas gasp in amazement as they emerged through the crack, but he couldn’t have been sure. His world had shrunk to the battlefield.

The cavern beyond the passage was a bowl broken out of the rock, the blue light that lit it shining from within veins of crystal embedded in the walls. He and Ekhaas stood on a broad ledge halfway up the cavern’s height; more ledges all around the cavern made gigantic steps down to a wide, uneven floor. Across the floor, a broad tunnel opened in the far wall and descended into darkness. The tunnel mouth was surrounded by a ring of blue-black Khyber dragonshards and smooth stones etched with Gatekeeper symbols, all set in a dark and glittering mortar.

The seal on the prison of the Master of Silence.

On ledges to one side of the cavern, closer to the seal than to him and Ekhaas, were the kalashtar captives. There were more than a dozen of them, some moaning, some twisting, all looking as if they struggled against some unseen tormentor. Maybe they did. Gold bracers shone on their arms and Geth saw the flash of both bright crystals and Khyber shards trapped within the gold wire. Psicrystals and the ancient binding stones. He remembered what Dah’mir had done to Dandra-Tetkashtai’s psicrystal interacting with the binding stone to switch the minds of kalashtar and crystal.

Loathing rose in his chest. The switch had already been made and in this place where madness was strong, the minds of the kalashtar would find all the strength they needed to kill a part of themselves and escape their crystal prisons.

But before the writhing kalashtar stood Medala, her body rigid and her eyes wide, and on the ledges below Geth were Batul and the other Gatekeepers. Some of the druids were down. One looked dead, his face contorted by his final efforts to draw breath. Others were still alive, but rolling on the ledges and clutching at their heads as they screamed. Those who had not fallen wore grim determination on their faces. Geth saw two of them gesture, heard them call on the power of nature to strike at their enemy. Medala’s expression twitched, and the cavern seemed to ring with the sound of crystalline chimes. One of the druid’s eyes bulged, and his words were cut off as he dropped to his knees, clutching his throat. The other druid’s spell ended with the thump of a hunda stick into her belly as her neighbor, anger darkening his face, turned on her.

Geth’s voice tore at his throat. “Medala!”

He threw himself toward her, bounding from ledge to ledge. The kalashtar’s eyes flicked toward him. The chimes rang again, and a pressure slammed into his mind. He staggered under the assault-staggered and recovered as Medala’s attack slid off the shield of Ekhaas’s spell. Medala’s face twisted.

“Stop him!” she howled, and Geth nearly staggered again. There were definitely two voices speaking from her mouth! He clenched his jaw and leaped for the next ledge.

On the edge of his vision, he saw struggle turn into blankness on an orc’s face. The druid’s hand twisted into a claw and jerked upward. Stone splintered and cracked as jagged spikes burst from the surface of the ledge ahead of Geth. It was too late for him to stop his leap. Sharp points and razor edges bit into his feet as he landed. A red lance of pain drove through his body and he stumbled forward, falling with his full weight toward more of the bristling shards.

He twisted hard, arcing his body up and pulling his right arm under him. The thick metal of the forearm of his gauntlet crashed into the spikes. Chips of stone spit into the air and agony seared his elbow, but nothing else pierced his body-with his fall broken, the spikes only dimpled his shifting toughened hide. He thrust himself back up with a snarl and stalked on defiantly across the shattered face of the ledge, ignoring the pain that came with each step. Looking Medala full in the face, he snapped his arms straight. His sword and his gauntlet hissed in the air. “Try again!” he spat.

The growl that grew of out Medala’s chest began thin and cold. Something about it made Geth’s skin crawl, and he bounded forward, running again. Somewhere behind him, he heard a lone orc chanting and thought that he recognized Batul’s voice. He didn’t dare look back though. He pushed himself into a sprint in spite of the agony in his feet. His arms pumped at his sides. His gaze was fixed on Medala’s-just as hers was fixed on him.

The distance between them closed. Medala’s growl built into a scream that echoed with two voices and a hint of brittle crystal. The air around her began to shine with light. The other kalashtar grew still and silent. Batul’s chanting became deep and sonorous, and the cavern seemed to reverberate with the sound. Geth jumped down to the next ledge. There was only one more rocky shelf between him and Medala. He could see her eyes, the pupils shrunk to black pinpricks once more.

Medala’s scream broke. The shimmer that had surrounded her burst outward in shining waves, sweeping over Geth and across the cavern.

Something of her power blasted at his mind. Geth tried to cling to the clarity Ekhaas had sung into him, but this time Medala’s attack scoured it away and left him unguarded. The power tore at his body-no, not just at his body. At him and everything around him. It went all the way through him. He felt it on his skin and deep in his guts. He felt it on the air and in the stone under his feet.

Batul’s chant ended in a cry from the old orc. The other Gatekeepers cried out too. Everything shook before the waves of power, as if the very substance of the world were under attack. Helpless before the waves, Geth stumbled and was flung back off the ledge.

For an instant, he seemed to drift on the air. Then the hard stone of the cavern floor slammed into him. The waves continued to hammer at him. From where he lay, he could see them pounding at the Gatekeepers and Ekhaas as well, rolling on and on like a storm on some vast sea.

Until another burst of silver-white light flashed from a ledge just above the one on which Batul and Ekhaas clung to each other. Four dark forms appeared against the glare.

Singe, Dandra, Ashi, and a young kalashtar man. Geth knew he should have wondered how they’d reached the cavern or what they were doing in the Shadow Marches at all, but all he could think was, Grandmother Wolf, they’re alive.

Alive, but not for long. The waves caught them too. The young man, Ashi, and Singe staggered back against the rock behind them. But Dandra … Dandra leaned forward as if trying to walk into a strong wind. Her hand thrust out-

Dandra thought she’d prepared herself for anything, but the sight of the strange cavern-of the scattered orcs, of Batul and Ekhaas on the ledge just below her, of Geth lying on the cavern floor, of Medala and the kalashtar-made her freeze, even as the waves of power that radiated from Medala tore the others away.

Anger rose up in her.

The power that Medala had manifested was astounding and unlike anything Dandra had ever seen-Medala’s telepathy fused with Virikhad’s mastery of the far step into a single display of psionic strength. At the same time, the power sickened her. It arose out of madness. Medala would use it-did use it-to bring more kalashtar to madness.

Ashi had used her dragonmark the moment they’d spotted Dah’mir’s airship, and the protection granted by the mark still lingered. The mental attack in the waves faltered against the power of the mark, no match for it. The physical attack of the waves ripped at Dandra but didn’t frighten her-Virikhad’s power unravelled the fabric of space, but she did something much the same every time she used the far step herself. Dandra fought back the pain the surged through her, thrust herself against the waves, and flung out her hand.

Vayhatana passed through the battering waves with ease. Dandra seized Medala with her will and slammed her backward.

The gaunt woman’s screaming stopped. The shining waves vanished. She sat dazed, but only for a moment. Then her eyes fixed on Dandra-and a voice that was as much Virikhad as it was Medala spat, “You will die for that!”

“But you’ll die first!”

Medala’s head jerked up at the roar. Dandra twisted around, saw Ashi and Moon look up as well, heard Singe curse-and just barely caught the blur of movement as a black heron darted through a narrow passage in the rocky wall above her.

Dah’mir dropped to the cavern floor. His feathered wings beat on the air, then suddenly were feathered no longer. His small form swelled. Feathers became scales and heron became dragon. Dandra saw Geth’s eyes open very wide. The shifter seemed to convulse as he rolled over, thrust himself to his feet, and dashed for safety all in one movement. Dah’mir’s clawed feet slammed down where he had been.

From all of the lower ledges, those orcs who were able climbed higher, their faces pale with terror. Three didn’t move from where they lay, nor did Geth get the chance to climb. Dandra saw him press himself into a crevice between two ledges. Batul and Ekhaas hauled themselves up from the ledge below to join Dandra and the others.

“Khaavolaar,” Ekhaas said. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving the kalashtar Dah’mir kidnapped from Sharn,” said Singe, grabbing Batul’s arm and pulling him up.

The old Gatekeeper struck at him with his other arm as soon as he was over the edge. “Be quiet!” he hissed. “Word of Vvaraak, be quiet!”

But neither Dah’mir nor Medala paid any attention to them or the climbing orcs. Dandra stared as the kalashtar and the dragon who had once been like king and consort glared at each other.

Dah’mir struck first, his massive head darting forward swift as a snake, but his great teeth snapped together on nothingness. Medala vanished in a flash of light only to reappear on the next ledge over. Her eyes narrowed in concentration and more light played across Dah’mir’s shoulder. The dragon roared as blood oozed between the black-copper scales, but his wing swept out and slammed Medala back before she could evade it.

He whirled on her with a roar. “It would have been better for you to stay dead than steal from me!”

“We stole nothing!” Medala shouted back in her strange double voice. “What you had wasn’t yours!” A crystalline chime seemed to ring on the air. Dah’mir roared in sudden pain and lashed out again.

As they fought, Batul grasped Dandra’s arm. “You have to go, Dandra! Take Singe and Ashi and get out of this place while you can. It isn’t safe. I can’t protect you!”

Dandra pulled her arm away. “Protect us?” She reached across her back and drew her spear, pointing with it across the cavern to where the kalashtar stood held prisoner by the binding stones. “We came for them. If we don’t leave with them, we need to make certain they die here.”

On the ledge below, the surviving orcs were rallying. There were only five of them, all older than she would have expected, and Dandra realized abruptly that they weren’t warriors, but Gatekeepers like Batul. A desperate idea sprang into her mind. “You’re going to attack Medala and Dah’mir. We can use the distraction to reach the kalashtar-”

He shook his head. “Medala and Dah’mir aren’t the danger! Dandra, get out!”

“What about Geth?” Dandra demanded. “What about Ekhaas?” Geth was still somewhere down on the cavern floor. The hobgoblin was at Singe’s side, speaking urgently to him, Ashi, and Moon. Dandra saw the wizard stiffen in surprise, then look down toward the cavern floor and a tunnel that was ringed with stone and dragonshards.

Batul seized her arm once more. “The power of Vvaraak protects them, but I can’t invoke it again. Dandra, if you stay, you’ll fall-you can’t stand against him.”

She blinked. “Him?” She looked at the ringed tunnel again and realized what it was. “Light of il-Yannah-”

Her realization came too late. Across the cavern, the captive kalashtar raised their heads in unison, as if all of them had heard the same distant sound. Dah’mir’s head snapped around as well. Medala stiffened.

So did Moon. “He comes!” the young kalashtar moaned. He huddled back but Singe, Ashi, and Ekhaas stepped to Dandra’s side. Singe’s hand sought out Dandra’s.

The collar around Geth’s neck was so cold it hurt. The shifter saw Medala and Dah’mir break off the seemingly mismatched combat that had raged above his hiding place, and he saw the kalashtar who had stood behind Medala raise their heads, but it was really the cold of the collar that made him turn his head toward the great seal.

Something was happening within it. Not within the tunnel, but within the ring formed by the seal. The air stretched and shimmered, then seemed to contract. Something rushed to fill the space, as if unseen hands were focusing a vast and powerful spyglass and the ring of the seal was its lens.

A lens that snapped into focus, leaving Geth staring into a throne room where mind flayers took the place of lords and ministers, their dead white eyes inscrutable, their writhing tentacles hiding unspeakable secrets. Dolgaunts took the place of guards, and dolgrims of the court mastiffs. Tiny creatures resembling eyeless monkeys perched where tame birds or lapdogs might have, and elf-like women with thick tendrils growing among their hair and down their backs stood as if they were concubines.

At the center of the terrible assembly was a glittering black throne and on it, looking out through the lens, sat a pale and beautiful man in rich robes.

In the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol, Geth had fought the phantom of the daelkyr who had ruled the fortress in ancient times. The figure on the throne had exactly the same face as that phantom lord, except that his eyes were acid-green instead of lavender-and he had no mouth. Between nose and chin, the man on the throne had nothing but smooth skin.

He was no man, Geth knew. He was a daelkyr. He was the Master of Silence.

And he spoke.

A vast voice filled Geth’s head, like Dandra’s power of kesh but with none of sense of unity that kesh carried with it. The voice of the Master of Silence forced itself onto him, violating every corner of his mind, the words it spoke so vast that they threatened to wipe him away from himself.

But there was something between him and it, gentle but powerful like a warm breeze. The power of the amulet of Vvaraak muffled the enormous voice. The Master of Silence’s words were still deafening. They still made Geth feel like blood was trickling from his ears, but he could understand them.

My servants stand before me. My ancient enemies know fear. There was pleasure in the daelkyr’s tone.

Somewhere on the ledges above, people were screaming, overwhelmed by the voice. It wasn’t the kalashtar-Geth could see them and they stood still as statues. It couldn’t have been the Gatekeepers or Ekhaas-Batul had invoked the power of the amulet over them as well. His gut knotted. Singe and Dandra, Ashi and the young kalashtar. What protected them from the terrible voice?

Do something, Batul, he prayed silently. Wolf and Tiger, do something!

The screams went on and on.

Dah’mir didn’t seem to notice. His great body folded, his forelegs lowering and his neck dipping down to brush the ground. “Master!” he said. His voice was thick with adoration-and with anger. “Master, you have new servants because of me! I brought them here, not her.” His head twisted toward Medala. “Not … that.”

Medala hadn’t moved. She stood straight, facing the Master of Silence without obeisance or fear. The daelkyr’s eyes moved to her. You are not what you were the last time you stood in this place.

“No,” said Medala, two voices speaking the word.

The creatures gathered in the throne room beyond the lens hissed and shifted at this disrespect. Dah’mir reared upright with a roar. The Master of Silence stilled them all with a thought, a single command so powerful that even Geth felt the urge to obey it. Hush. The throne room fell silent. So did Dah’mir. So did the screams from above. The cavern was utterly quiet. The Master of Silence’s gaze on Medala didn’t waver. I was told you were dead.

“We were gone from this world.”

Interest stirred in the daelkyr’s voice. There is a familiar touch upon you.

Medala smiled. “We have been where you can no longer go, imprisoned lord,” she acknowledged. “We have been to Xoriat. We saw many things there-learned many things. We saw Dah’mir’s plans in Sharn.”

The hair on the back of Geth’s neck and on his arms rose. She’d told him and Ekhaas the truth-or at least part of it. He thought he could guess at the second voice that rolled behind Medala’s now. Had she ever told them what had become of Virikhad? No. They’d guessed. They’d assumed. They’d been wrong.

Was Batul hearing this? What were the Gatekeepers doing? Fear struck Geth. Would they have fled? Could they have abandoned him?

Dah’mir let out another bellow. “Master, she confirms it herself! She knew my plans! She stole the kalashtar from me! I brought your servants to-”

“You succeeded in Sharn only because we made certain you succeeded!” Medala said. “What will be born here today belongs to us. You don’t understand what you have created!”

As if the gaunt woman’s shriek had brought him down, one of the kalashtar slumped suddenly, then straightened again. He lifted his head and Geth saw the fever of madness in his dark eyes.

“They awaken!” said Dah’mir.

“They are reborn!” said Medala. “You still don’t understand.”

I feel him. The Master of Silence’s eyes were shining. I feel the touch of Xoriat upon him. And upon her! Another kalashtar, an old woman, shook her head and looked around herself as if seeing the world for the first time. And upon him!

A third kalashtar blinked, then a fourth stirred and a fifth. Then it seemed as if all of the kalashtar were shifting and waking. A murmur of amazement swept through the throne room beyond the lens of the seal. Geth’s gut tightened in horror. The very thing that they had tried so hard to prevent had come to pass.

The Master of Silence had his new servants.

Dah’mir just stared and shook his head. “This isn’t right!” he said. He spoke to himself, as if stunned by what was happening before him. “They awaken too quickly. Something is wrong.”

“How do you know that something’s wrong?” asked Medala. “How often have you seen this happen? Once? With us?”

The dragon’s head snapped around and he glared at her. “For decades, I studied! I researched! For centuries-”

“What have you studied, Dah’mir?” Medala shouted at him. “The forces of Xoriat. Legends of the true binding stones used in the Battle of Moths. The single pitiful imitation stone created by an apprentice. But did you study kalashtar? Did you understand the potential you unleashed when you turned your device upon us?”

Enough! The Master of Silence sat forward. I understand. I see servants able to walk abroad with no fear of the Gatekeepers. I see dreams and madness united. I see kalashtar who will serve the masters of Xoriat-

Medala turned on him. “You see wrong, daelkyr!”

The cavern was instantly quiet. Geth felt like he’d been slapped. The Master of Silence sat back. You go too far, he said softly.

There was no warning, no second chance as a human lord might have given. The lens between throne room and cavern bulged like the sail of a ship running before a storm as a sickly darkness reached through to strike at the woman who had defied a daelkyr.

It never reached her.

Geth couldn’t have said which of the kalashtar began the song or even if they all really joined in perfect unison as he imagined. The song was simply there, rising in a weird, dissonant chorus like tumbling crystals, louder and more pure than he had ever heard it before, pouring not so much from the kalashtar’s mouths as directly from their minds.

AAHYI-KSIKSIKSI-KLADAKLA-YAHAAHYI-KSIKSIKSI-KLA-

The force of it rocked him backward, bursting through the magic that had protected him from the daelkyr’s voice. Dah’mir staggered back like a startled child. Before the song, the sickly darkness that had pierced the seal writhed like something alive-and unraveled. The bulging lens shimmered and shrank, snapping back into place.

Beyond it, the Master of Silence’s eyes opened wide. His court was silent. The song dropped to a whisper and the kalashtar shifted to gather around Medala, all of them staring defiance. Medala’s lips drew back from her teeth.

“Did we say that we learned much in Xoriat?” she said in a seething voice. “What happens when you shatter a dream? Does it become a nightmare? No. A nightmare is still a dream. But madness … madness is a dream brought into the waking world.” She raised her arms to encompass all those who stood around her. “Understand what you have created. We are no longer kalashtar, the wandering dreams. We are katalarash, the wandering shadows, freed by madness. And we are not servants of the lords of the Dragon Below. We are not servants of Xoriat.” Her arms dropped. “We are its masters!”

CHAPTER 24

The voice of the Master of Silence was like an iron hook scraping through Singe’s brain. He tried to shut it out-there were techniques of concentration he had learned, ways to focus on spellcasting in the middle of a battlefield-but no discipline that he could dredge up from within himself helped. Words that were larger than he was burst through his mind. A few of them he caught. My servants … My enemies … The rest tumbled past him.

There were other voices closer at hand, real voices that weren’t just in his head. Most of them seemed to be screaming. Dandra’s voice was one of the few that wasn’t. She was calling his name. He forced his eye open and met hers-briefly. He couldn’t stop shaking. His body just wanted to curl into a ball. Hands held him back. Dandra’s voice returned through the screams. “Batul, what’s wrong with them?”

Batul flashed in and out of his field of vision. The old orc’s face was amazed. “Dandra, you resist his power!”

“It must be the effects of Ashi’s dragonmark!”

“Word of Vvaraak! Can she use it again?”

Their words vanished as the daelkyr spoke again. You’re not what you were … New agony burst through Singe’s head. He jerked and spun away from the hands that held him, hitting another rolling body. His eye snapped open at the impact. He lay face to patterned face with Ashi. She looked as if she were the same agony as him. Her eyes were wild. Her mouth was stretched wide in a scream. Her hands were clenched over her ears, though that could have done no good at all. Nothing could have shut out that voice.

A word rolled into Singe’s ringing ears. “No.”

Who’d spoken it? He thought it was Medala, but it could have been Dandra, answering Batul. Whoever had spoken, he saw Ashi’s face twist in response, and a word broke into her scream.

“Yes!” Her eyes focused, and her head slammed up into his. Hard.

The impact brought bright sparks of pain, but it also slapped aside the agony of the Master of Silence’s voice and left Singe’s mind clear as cool water. Hands dragged him off Ashi’s body, but not before he’d felt the heat that radiated from her skin. From her dragonmark.

“Twelve moons!” he gasped through the shock. There was roaring in his ears-Dah’mir-and screaming-Ashi and Moon. His throat was sore and he realized that he had been screaming too.

“Singe?” The hands that held him flipped him over and he saw Dandra’s face. “Light of il-Yannah! What happened?”

“Ashi used her mark on me.”

Dandra’s eyebrows rose. “Twice in a day? She can’t!”

“She did.” He gripped her arm. “Bloody moons, Dandra, you don’t know what it’s like-”

He flinched as the Master of Silence spoke again, but this time it brought no pain, only a single word. Hush.

It couldn’t have been directed at Ashi and Moon, but somehow it must have pierced through their tortured minds. They fell silent and grew still, though agony continued to wrack their faces. Singe twisted away from Dandra. “We have to help them!”

Batul moved quicker than he did. With a nimbleness that defied his age, the old Gatekeeper grabbed Ashi’s left hand and Moon’s right. He thrust a chunky amulet between their palms, then quickly twisted the cord of the amulet around to bind them together. Singe caught only a glimpse of the amulet, but he recognized it as Batul’s ancient talisman of Vvaraak. Whatever power it had seemed to pass into Ashi and Moon-their faces eased immediately. Batul looked up at Singe and Dandra. His face was hard.

“It may protect two. It couldn’t have protected three. You have a choice to make-if you take them and leave now, all four of you may still survive.”

Singe glanced at Dandra. She lifted her chin in the gesture of determination he knew so well. He looked back at Batul. “We’re staying.”

The druid nodded and grabbed their arms, pulling them over to where Ekhaas already crouched, staring down from the ledge at the scene below. “We need a plan,” he whispered. “If we act quickly …”

He didn’t need to finish. If they acted quickly, maybe they could take their enemies by surprise. And maybe that would give them an edge, Singe thought. Maybe. He stared down at the cavern floor, at Medala and Dah’mir arguing over the captive kalashtar, at the terrifying form of the Master of Silence in his prison. It was almost as if they’d forgotten the Gatekeepers or dismissed them as inconsequential.

Maybe they had-Medala had already come close to disabling the orcs on her own. Singe tried to focus past what was being said below and come up with a strategy. He drew a deep breath and said quickly, “Batul, you Gatekeepers are vulnerable to Medala’s attacks, but Ashi’s dragonmark should protect Dandra and I, so we’ll go against her. You turn your magic against Dah’mir. Weaken him. Ekhaas, is Geth still down there?” The hobgoblin nodded. “Then find him-we may need his sword against Dah’mir too.”

Batul’s face paled. “What about the Master of Silence?”

“Pray that he can’t do anything more than shout at us.”

Dandra’s arm thrust out. “Singe, the kalashtar-!” she began, but Dah’mir’s roar completed her words.

“They awaken!”

Medala’s voice rose as well. “They are reborn!”

“Twelve moons!” Singe cursed. “Dandra, will they wake with their powers?”

She answered through clenched teeth. “I did!”

The Master of Silence’s voice rolled over them in excitement. More kalashtar were waking. Shelsatori shook her head and looked around. Dah’mir looked confused. Singe’s hand tightened on his rapier and he rose to his feet. “They’re still distracted,” he said. “We have a chance. Batul, wait until Dandra and I are close enough to attack Medala, then launch your attack on Dah’mir. Ekhaas, get down to Geth.”

Hobgoblin and orc nodded in grim silence and moved, Batul down to the lower ledge where the other druids clustered, Ekhaas heading for the cavern floor. Singe turned to offer Dandra a hand up, but she was already standing. A strange feeling tightened Singe’s shoulders as he looked at her, spear in her hand and fire in her eyes.

“We’re a long way from that path outside Bull Hollow,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not so far as that.” She pushed off from the ground and skimmed up to the next ledge.

Singe followed. They stayed high on the bowl of the cavern, moving as quickly as they dared without attracting attention. As long as Dah’mir and Medala argued, maybe they’d have a chance. The newly woken kalashtar didn’t move except to examine their surroundings. Nor did they speak. In fact, it seemed to Singe that they actually seemed somewhat disoriented, as if they still hadn’t recovered fully.

I see servants able to walk abroad with no fear of the Gatekeepers, the Master of Silence was raving. I see dreams and madness united. I see kalashtar who will serve the masters of Xoriat-

The combined voices of Medala and Virikhad cut him off like twin knives. “You see wrong, daelkyr!”

Singe froze. Dandra froze. The entire cavern froze. Beyond the lens, the daelkyr sat back on his throne. You go too far, he said in a tone that chilled Singe’s guts.

And the lens bulged. A streamer of darkness struck through the seal-and the killing song rose from the kalashtar like a mighty wind to thrust it back.

The sheer fury of the song made Singe stumble. Even Dandra rocked back and dropped down to the ledge. “Il-Yannah,” she whispered in awe.

If Singe’s guts had been chilled a moment before, now they were icy. The Master of Silence could do more than shout through his seal-and the kalashtar could do much more than shout.

Or perhaps not the kalashtar, but the katalarash. Singe’s cold belly rose in nauseating terror as Medala’s arms dropped and she stared at the Master of Silence like a thin, mad queen. He looked to Dandra. Her face was pale. “Is it possible?”

“No-” Her voice caught. “I don’t know.”

Beyond the seal, the mouthless face of the daelkyr grew dark with a terrible fury. The weird creatures of his court swirled in agitated chaos, trying to push away from their lord. When the daelkyr’s answer to Medala’s declaration came, it was as if the charge of an entire army had been compressed into his voice.

The daelkyr do not know masters! The daelkyr create only servants! We raise up only those who will serve! The Master of Silence lifted a perfectly formed hand. Dah’mir! Show her the power of a faithful servant.

Black lightning leaped from his hand. It played across the lens within the Gatekeeper seal, made the air ripple with its passage, then spat out into the cavern and grounded itself in the glittering blue-black dragonshard embedded in Dah’mir’s broad chest.

The dragon reared back and roared as the lightning flowed on and on in a crackling stream. His bellows shook the cavern, bringing loose stones crashing down from the ceiling. His great wings unfurled and beat at the air, raising a storm of grit-Singe flung up an arm to shield his eyes. Dah’mir seemed almost to swell as his body absorbed the power that the daelkyr fed to him. His scales glistened. His acid-green eyes shone like eerie stars.

And the lightning still flowed when he struck, dropping back down onto four feet, drawing his head back, then whipping it forward, mouth wide as if to vomit acid at Medala and the katalarash.

But instead of acid, a colorless vapor distorted the air. Singe knew that attack-Dah’mir had caught him with it once, and it had dragged at him, slowing his actions and leaving him horribly vulnerable. Medala, however, just let the stuff wash over her as the killing song rose again. When she moved, there was nothing slow about her actions. Her arms came together, and a hollow crack shivered on the air.

A stream of frost burst from her hand and streaked toward Dah’mir-except that he was no longer there. Powerful legs uncoiled, and the dragon leaped easily to the side. Medala’s bolt of frost passed under him and spattered across rocks on the far side of the chamber, coating them with ice. Dah’mir landed across the ledges that Singe and Medala had only just left, legs spread wide, clawed feet gripping the rock as easily as if he stood on a level surface. Singe gasped and flattened himself against the ledge. Dandra dropped down with him. Dah’mir’s blazing eyes were still only for Medala, however. He leaped again, directly at her this time.

The killing song pitched deep. Medala’s head came up.

Dah’mir’s leap spun sideways. He flew across the cavern and smashed into the wall.

“Vayhatana!” Dandra said.

“Bloody moons! Vayhatana, ice bolts-when did Medala or Virikhad learn to do that?” Singe asked.

“They didn’t,” said Dandra. “Those powers belong to the other kalashtar!” She pointed at one of the men in Medala’s singing chorus. “Otonalast knows frost the way I know fire. Il-Yannah, the killing song must allow Medala and Virikhad to draw on the powers of those caught in it!”

“And maybe the other way around too.” Singe said. “That would explain how Erimelk and Moon were able to use Virikhad’s far step powers.” He stared at Dah’mir-and hissed in amazement.

The dragon staggered to his feet with one wing bent at an unnatural angle, but the black lightning still crackled around the seal and another arc of it leaped to the shard in Dah’mir’s chest. He howled as his wing straightened then stiffened, healed once more. His eyes flared again, and he spun on Medala, pacing the floor of the cavern like a hunting cat pacing before prey. From beyond the lightning-shot lens, the creatures of the Master of Silence’s court cheered at the battle, though the daelkyr himself only watched with narrowed eyes.

Was he concentrating on his champion?

“Medala can draw on the powers of her katalarash,” said Dandra. “Dah’mir has the power of the Master of Silence behind him. If they can’t stop each other, how do we stop either of them? And if we do, how do we stop the other one? We can’t take on either one!”

Singe groaned and ground his teeth together, trying to think of something. Some solution. Had Virikhad shown any hint of a weakness while he’d inhabited Moon’s body on the airship? Had Dah’mir? Had there been anything that they could exploit?

Yes.

He rolled over, and his hand dug into the pouch around his waist. His fingers closed on a cold, hard object, and he drew out the binding stone he had removed from the bracer meant for Moon. Dandra recoiled at the sight of it, but then her breath hissed between her teeth.

“You can’t use that against Medala! Whichever of her mind or Virikhad’s the stone traps, the other one will be left behind.”

“I wasn’t thinking of using it on Medala,” Singe told her. He flipped back over onto his belly and searched the cavern for the Gatekeepers. Down on the cavern floor, Dah’mir stalked slowly closer to Medala. She waited for him with frost glittering on one hand and fire flickering around the other. The killing song had sunk to a dull throb, the katalarash still surrounding Medala like unmoving guards. Singe spotted the orcs pressed to the back of a deep ledge. He pointed them out to Dandra. “Can you reach Batul with kesh?”

Geth watched Dah’mir glide across the cavern, his burning green gaze and Medala’s pinprick eyes fixed on each other. The dragon paused, then extended his foot in one more step …

Medala’s fiery hand snapped up, and white flames poured forth in a roaring bolt. Dah’mir flung himself aside-and so did Geth, ducking back into the niche between ledges that had become his hiding place. He had to drag Ekhaas back with him as Medala’s flame spattered like burning water on the rock.

“You’re a hazard!” he snarled at her.

The excitement in her amber eyes dimmed no more than it had since she had dropped down on him in the aftermath of Medala’s declaration, and as soon as the gout of fire faded, she was up again. Geth groaned and rose with her. It had been good to know that the Gatekeepers hadn’t abandoned him, but Ekhaas had hissed Singe’s message to attack Dah’mir just as the daelkyr’s black lightning had turned the dragon into a scaled juggernaut. He’d spent every moment since that one ducking up and down, alternately looking for some way to reach safety and pressing back to avoid bolts of ice or blasts of fire.

Or falling dragons. The leap that had briefly broken Dah’mir’s wing had thrown him against the cavern wall less than three paces from Geth and Ekhaas’s hiding place. Dah’mir had been close enough for Geth to smell the acrid, coppery odor of his body. He’d almost taken the chance of leaping out and charging the stunned dragon, but that would have exposed him to Medala-and he wasn’t certain that even Wrath could do Dah’mir serious harm so long as the power of the Master of Silence flowed into him.

Then the daelkyr’s black lightning had made Dah’mir’s broken wing whole again, and Geth had been certain that he wouldn’t be able to harm the dragon.

Out on the cavern floor, Medala’s other hand rose as Dah’mir landed and frost howled like a slice carved from a mountain blizzard. This time Dah’mir didn’t dodge her attack but barreled ahead. Frost covered his chest as it expanded in a deep breath and rimed his muzzle as it thrust forward.

Acid burst from between his jaws, yellow-green and foul.

Medala stumbled back, but the song of the katalarash strengthened, and her head came up again. She brought her hands together and thrust outward, the heels of her palms joined and her fingers spread as if she were trying to shield herself.

The gout of acid vanished into a flare of brilliant light that sent Dah’mir springing back. A few stray drops hissed down on Medala’s clothes and those of the singing katalarash, leaving smoking holes but nothing worse. Dah’mir ended up high on the wall over head, clinging to the stone, while he and Medala glared at each other once more. The thin cheering of the Master of Silence’s creatures penetrated the lens of the seal.

Yet the katalarash didn’t move. The song didn’t waver.

Geth stared at them and bared his teeth as a thought occurred to him. “Ekhaas, you’ve been in battles. Have you ever seen a unit take a charge like that without even flinching?”

The hobgobin’s ears flicked. Eyes that had been watching everything with unblinking intensity narrowed. “No,” she said. “Even duur’kala warsingers would have fallen back.”

“That’s what I thought,” Geth growled. “Grandfather Rat’s naked tail-kalashtar or katalarash, I think Medala’s controlling them just like she did the horde. If we could break that control, Dah’mir might have a chance at taking her down.” He looked at Ekhaas. “Do you think that countersong you were working on might work?”

Her ears stood up tall. “Khaavolaar! Have you gone as mad as Medala? Once Dah’mir finishes her, he’ll still be strong and we’ll have to face him!”

“What’s our choice?” Geth demanded. “We can’t hide here forever and we can’t face both-”

There was a scuffling on a ledge above. Geth spun, gauntlet up and sword out, but it wasn’t some new threat, only the Gatekeepers scuttling down like monkeys, staying low and moving as quickly as they could. Batul flung himself flat on the ledge and leaned out to get closer to Geth. “Dandra’s in my head!” he said. “Singe has a plan. He says you need to be ready to attack Dah’mir.”

Geth choked. “Rat! That’s crazy-” He caught Medala’s glare and choked off the word. Crazy as Singe or mad as Medala, they needed to make a move. He twisted around and looked for the wizard and the kalashtar. He found them creeping down the ledges at the far end of the cavern, getting closer to floor level. “What am I waiting for?” he asked tightly.

“They’re going to try and weaken Dah’mir. We have a part in it too. Dandra’s says that if this works, you’ll know when to strike. If you can take him down, they’ll strike at Medala.”

Geth’s mouth twitched and a smile broke across it. A rush of energy filled his belly. “They’re going to weaken Dah’mir,” he repeated, then glanced at Ekhaas. She looked back at him, her ears twitching, and slowly nodded. Geth looked back at Batul. “Tell Dandra we can weaken Medala for them.”

The old Gatekeeper’s eye twitched as he relayed the message back to Dandra, then blinked. “Singe says there’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“They’re going to need a distraction.”

CHAPTER 25

Dandra released her hold on the kesh. “They’re ready.”

Singe looked at her. “Are you ready?”

She drew a deep breath and glanced up at Dah’mir. The dragon still clung high on the wall of the cavern, his eyes on Medala. The gaunt kalashtar-or katalarash or whatever she wanted to call herself-still stood with the captives from Sharn behind. Dandra tightened her grip on her spear and nodded.

“Good,” said Singe. “Then let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long.”

She could feel her heart beating. It seemed loud in the cavern, even with the soft murmur of the killing song-ready to swell again in an instant-and the excited buzz of the Master of Silence’s creatures as they pressed close to their side of the lens, eager for another flurry of strikes between Dah’mir and Medala. She wondered where the daelkyr’s throne room really was. Before the lens had formed in the seal, the tunnel beyond had looked empty and long. The throne room could be deep, deep below them, far down in the dark reaches of Khyber. Batul had assured her it didn’t matter, that what Singe had proposed would work.

At least in theory, and theory was better than nothing.

She drew another breath, holding herself ready.

Geth burst from cover with a bound and a shout, tearing across the cavern floor. The shifter ran a weaving pattern, back and forth. Dandra saw Medala’s face turn to follow him and prayed that she wasn’t ready with a psionic power to throw against him. It was tempting to look up and see what Dah’mir’s reaction was, but she didn’t dare. She kept her attention fixed on the lens and on the Master of Silence. The daelkyr’s eyes, at least, followed Geth.

“Good,” Singe breathed. “Good. That’s far enough …”

The moment Geth reached the midway point of the cavern floor, Batul and the Gatekeepers stood up on the ledge where they had been hiding, and their old voices rose in a chant. Their faces were intent, and the words they spoke so low that even knowing what they were doing, Dandra could barely hear them. Medala’s head didn’t turn. The Master of Silence’s eyes didn’t leave Geth. There was a cry from above though. Dah’mir had seen the druids! Dandra’s teeth clenched down. Eyes on the daelkyr, she told herself, eyes on the daelkyr!

Dah’mir’s cry turned both Medala and the Master of Silence toward the Gatekeepers. Batul’s face grew taut. He thrust out his hunda stick and the chant broke into a shout. Geth dived for shelter. Dandra held her breath and gathered her will.

A shimmer passed over the lens in the seal. The black lightning that crawled across it pulled suddenly to the edges and stayed there.

And one of the dolgrims who must have been especially close to the other side of the lens stumbled and fell through into the cavern with a dazed yelp.

“It’s open!” shouted Singe. “Now, Dandra!”

The seal would only be open for an instant. The druids couldn’t-wouldn’t-leave it open any longer. Their voices were already strained. An instant, though, was long enough. Singe tossed the binding stone into the air. Dandra focused her will on it, caught it with vayhatana-and flung it straight at the Master of Silence’s stunned face.

The blue-black dragonshard flew as hard and true as a stone flung from a sling, flying through the lens and the open seal with barely a ripple. The druid’s voices fell silent and they stumbled back. The lens flickered again as the seal closed once more.

But the Master of Silence’s eyes flicked as well. The binding stone came to a stop an armslength before him.

“Light of il-Yannah,” Dandra whispered. Singe’s expression fell in shock. On the cavern wall, Dah’mir laughed. His roar shook the cavern.

“Who would stand against the Master of Silence?”

Beyond the lens, the creatures in the daelkyr’s throne room had drawn back from their lord and from the binding stone. Dandra was certain that even if they didn’t know what it was, they could sense just as she could what it would do to any psionic creature who touched it. The Master of Silence, however, leaned forward slightly, studying the stone. Dandra saw it flash darkly as some power like vayhatana rotated it so the daelkyr could see all sides. After a moment, he sat back.

One of the stones of Taruuzh. I remember the night that the Gatekeepers rained these down upon my armies at the Battle of Moths. He looked out through the lens, and his eyes settled on Dandra. A sensation of great presence, similar to what she felt when she faced Dah’mir but even more intense, washed over her, held back only by the protection of Ashi’s dragonmark. Not an attack, Dandra realized, but only the unnatural effect of the Master of Silence’s simple attention. She forced herself to stand straight, to meet the daelkyr’s gaze.

A touch of amusement entered his voice. Frail creations, as fragile as the moths that carried them. Taruuzh knew better. He never tried to turn his creation against me.

The Master of Silence stretched out an open hand. The binding stone dropped, and he closed his fingers around it.

Nothing happened. Dandra heard one of the Gatekeepers cry out in dismay.

Then one of the mind flayers beyond the lens staggered and dropped to its knees. As did another. And another. One of the hairless monkey creatures plunged to the ground, dead. The elf-like women dropped and doubled over, the tentacles on their backs drooping limp as huge dead slugs. Dolgaunts and dolgrims fled. The lone dolgrim who had fallen through the open seal wailed and fled for the darkest corner of the cavern. A look of discomfort crossed the Master of Silence’s face-discomfort that turned swiftly to pain. His other hand clenched the wrist of the one that grasped the binding stone. The black lightning that had played across the lens flickered and contracted to single dark speck as the daelkyr concentrated on fighting the power of the stone.

“Yes!” Singe hissed.

Dah’mir’s laughter turned to panic as he saw the source of his strength cut off. “Master? Master!” He sprang from the wall to the floor, landing in front of the lens. “Master!”

The Master of Silence flung back his head and let loose a howl that made Dandra stagger. The dark speck on the lens gaped wide for an instant, and black lightning leaped from the Khyber shard in Dah’mir’s chest in a short, brilliant arc. Dah’mir’s howl joined his master’s, shaking air as well as minds.

But even that reclaimed energy must not have been enough. The lens flashed and collapsed with a crack like thunder, the vision of the nightmare throne room vanishing along with the daelkyr’s howl. Dah’mir staggered back. When his eyes opened, they were dull, and he stared at the empty seal in disbelief.

Medala’s laugh rose, harsh as slate. “You called for your master? We are here!” She raised her arms and the killing song rose in a powerful chorus-

— that faltered as another song wove around it. From the same niche out of which Geth had emerged, Ekhaas appeared, walking slowly forward. She held her head high, her eyes were intense, and the muscles and tendons of her throat stood out. The song that rolled from her open mouth was … powerful. Primal. Whenever Dandra had heard Ekhaas sing her magic, she could feel the ancient energies that the hobgoblin drew on, but this was something even older. As if Ekhaas were singing the music of creation itself.

The killing song had always sounded somehow incomplete, strangely discordant and barely musical at all. Ekhaas’s song completed it. The notes that she sang slid between the mad syllables of the killing song and lifted them up into something that throbbed with a harsh beauty, like beautiful jewelry hammered out of steel. Dandra almost wished she dared touch one of the katalarash with kesh, just to listen as the magic of the music eased the storm that must fill their minds just as it had filled Erimelk’s. But she could see a softening in the singers’ faces, an easing of the madness behind their eyes.

And now it was Medala’s laughter that turned into a scream. “No!” She thrust a hand toward. Ekhaas, as if to blast her with frost or fire or vayhatana, but the stolen powers were gone, lifted away as the killing song had been lifted. Her gaunt face twisted and two voices wailed in unison from her mouth. “No!”

“Now!” shouted Singe. “Geth! Now!” His left hand pointed at Dah’mir. His right hand pointed at Medala. “Dandra, now!”

Dandra was moving before the words were out of his mouth, thrusting herself away from the ledge and skimming across the cavern floor for Medala. The mighty had fallen. Where both Medala and Dah’mir had been too powerful to even harm each other, with the sources of their power lost they were a match-and maybe, just maybe, they could be brought down. She heard Geth’s roar as he leaped for Dah’mir, caught a glimpse of the dragon’s bared teeth as he turned to meet the shifter, then all of her attention was on her part in the battle.

Medala and Virikhad might have been cut off from the uniting strength of the katalarash, but they still had their own powers. Medala’s eyes focused on Ekhaas, and her face tightened in concentration.

Dandra lashed out with vayhatana, coiling invisible threads around Medala’s legs, and pulled hard. The other woman’s feet came out from under her, and she slammed down, her concentration broken. She squirmed around, and her gaze found Dandra. A hiss of anger broke from her lips.

Dandra was on her before she could do more. She heard a gasp from Singe, the sound of an impact, and a howl from Dah’mir, but she ignored them. Her hands tightened on the shaft of her spear as she plunged the glittering point down.

Squirming like a lizard, Medala threw herself back, and the point grated on rock. Her foot kicked at the grounded spear. The sharp impact knocked it out of Dandra’s hands. Dandra caught it with a thought before it hit the ground, but the distraction gave Medala the moment she needed to fling herself back among the still singing, still motionless katalarash.

“Stop her!” she screamed at them over another roar from Dah’mir. A flash of orange light-magical flame cast by Singe, Dandra knew without looking-threw shadows across her. She twisted around for a moment, and Dandra saw fear as well madness in her eyes.

Medala grabbed the nearest katalarash. It was Shelsatori. She shook the older woman hard. “Stop singing and turn your powers on Dandra!” She clamped a hand over Shelsatori’s jaw, forcing it shut.

Shelsatori blinked and, for an instant, fixed Medala with a glare of such intense hatred that Medala stumbled back. Her hand left Shelsatori’s mouth.

The old woman took up the killing song without a pause. Calm returned to her eyes-and realization filled Dandra.

I will do whatever it takes to make that song stop! Moon had said on board the airship. In Sharn, when Dandra had touched Erimelk’s raving mind with kesh, she’d felt the chaos of it. And Virikhad had driven his victims to kill by offering them a target for the violence whipped up by the song.

By completing the song, Ekhaas had done more than weaken Medala. She’d given the katalarash another escape.

There was a howling like wind in the air. Dandra wanted to look and see what was happening behind her, but she kept her eyes on Medala as the gaunt woman, two minds crying out from her thin body, turned desperately among those she had tried to drag down into her madness. “It’s the song,” Dandra shouted at her over the howling. “You bound them too closely to the song!”

Medala whirled around and leaped at her with a scream. Dandra snapped her spear up.

The impact drove Dandra backward, but her hands clung tight to the spear shaft. She felt the wood tremble as Medala thrust herself along it, fingers arched like claws and still grabbing for her. Dandra went down on one knee, bracing herself and forcing the spear up. Two voices groaned, but Medala kept coming. Silver-white light flaming around it, one of her hands raked down at Dandra’s face-

— raked down, faltered, and fell short. Silver-white light spit and faded. Pin-prick eyes looked down at her. The howling that had been in the air faded just as her red-flecked lips moved.

“We,” Medala and Virikhad said together, “are the masters …”

Blood ran down the spear shaft and over Dandra’s hands in a crimson cascade. She released the weapon. Medala slid to the ground and lay still. Dandra stared at her for a moment, then looked up at the other katalarash, still lost in a song.

A song that broke with a choking cough from Dah’mir, the fall of an enormous body, and an abrupt cry from Ekhaas.

Ekhaas’s song ended. The katalarash sang alone.

“No,” breathed Dandra. She spun around. “No! Ekhaas!”

“Geth! Now!”

It was the signal he’d been waiting for. Geth let out all of the fear and fury he’d held back and forced it into a roar as he leaped at Dah’mir.

Dah’mir swung around to meet him with massive teeth exposed-and a part of Geth wondered just what he thought he was doing. Even if the power poured into him by the Master of Silence had been leeched away, Dah’mir was still a dragon.

Too late for doubts. The day he thought before charging into something would probably be the day he died. Geth threw himself right at the dragon’s muzzle and swung Wrath hard.

It was a bad blow. The byeshk blade tore a line along the spined frill below Dah’mir’s chin, cutting skin without doing real damage. That didn’t matter. Dah’mir bellowed and his head jerked up in reaction to the injury. Geth dived in underneath the dragon’s body, aiming for his real target: the Khyber dragonshard embedded in Dah’mir’s chest. A lucky blow had shattered the shard there once before and forced Dah’mir to flee.

Geth gritted his teeth, wrapped both hands around Wrath’s hilt, and swung.

But Dah’mir hadn’t forgotten his vulnerability either. With an angry hiss, the dragon reared up away from the attacker under his chest. Geth’s swing swept through air. Dah’mir’s claw, sweeping in from the side, didn’t.

The massive talons found his gauntlet before they found his body. They raked across the magewrought steel with a terrible scraping sound, but caught only the fabric of Geth’s clothing. The blow was still powerful enough to lift him up and hurl him back. He hit the wall of the cavern just beside the stones and glittering mortar of the ancient Gatekeeper seal. Pain broke through his shifting-dull across his back, sharp in his gauntleted arm, very sharp in his side. Every breath stabbed him.

He blinked back the bright haze of agony. Across the cavern, Dandra was closing on Medala. In the other direction, Ekhaas still sang, matching the song of the katalarash though she kept one eye on Dah’mir. Unfortunately, it seemed that Geth had all of the dragon’s attention. Dah’mir crouched back down. “Why am I cursed with you?” he howled at Geth.

The shifter spat-blood hit the stone of the cavern floor-and thrust himself upright with a snarl. “We get the enemies we deserve.” He lifted his voice. “I could use some help!”

From the far side of the cavern, arcane words hissed on the air. Fire burst over Dah’mir’s back in a spray of orange flame. The dragon roared and twisted around. Past him, Geth saw Singe, wisps of magic still rising from his fingers. The wizard’s face seemed strangely distorted, not least by cold anger. “Keeper take you, Dah’mir!” he shouted.

The dragon’s head whipped between the two of them as if deciding who to vent his rage at first-then the decision was taken away from him. Up on the ledge where the Gatekeepers had taken shelter, a white-haired figure leaning heavily on a hunda stick rose. The hand that Batul held out trembled, but his voice was strong. “Nature rejects you, servant of madness! Your time is at an end.” His hand rose higher and he spoke a word that swirled in the air.

The swirl grew into a sudden howl of wind. It lifted small rocks and dust from the cavern floor and whirled them around Dah’mir, battering and tearing at him. The dragon fell back, eyes clenched shut against the storm, his massive head shaking like a dog’s. Singe loosed his spell, and another bolt of flame forced Dah’mir further around.

Up on the ledge, Batul turned and looked down at Geth. “Your sword!” he shouted. “Strike now!”

Geth looked down at Wrath. The purple-black byeshk of the Dhakaani weapon had begun to glow with a twilight radiance, like an ember fanned by the wind of Batul’s magic. Dhakaani weapons and Gatekeeper magic had together won the ancient Daelkyr War, the old druid had told him. And Ekhaas had once said that Wrath had been forged to be wielded by the heroes of Dhakaan fighting alongside Gatekeepers.

He remembered the same radiance glowing in the blade when he’d driven it into Dah’mir before. Clenching his teeth against the pain of his injuries, Geth pushed himself away from the wall and sprinted for the dragon.

Dah’mir heard him coming. His acid-green eyes opened against the wrath of Batul’s spell and he snapped at Geth, neck stretching out. Geth dropped and slid under the clashing jaws. Batul’s spell tore at him as well, scouring shifting-toughened skin, but he ignored it as he ignored the pain in his side. Dah’mir tried to rear up the way he had before-

He was too slow. Geth rolled to his feet and, in one smooth motion that had all of his strength and weight behind it, swung Wrath against the shard in the dragon’s chest.

The glowing sword bit through scales and cut deep into flesh. Dark, hot blood burst out, sizzling on Wrath and spraying across Geth’s face. The Dhakaani blade hit the dragonshard-and shattered it.

It seemed to Geth that a final spark of black lightning escaped from the shattered shard and darted away past the great seal, like some last remnant of the Master of Silence’s power returning to him. Dah’mir let out a choking cough. His forelegs curled toward Geth as if to scrape him away. The shifter leaned against Wrath and rocked the sword back and forth, forcing the forked tip deeper into the dragon’s flesh. On one of Dah’mir’s forelegs, a red Eberron shard embedded in the scales flared as if burning from the inside out-just as Wrath cut into something deep in Dah’mir’s body.

The flare in the burning red dragonshard turned dark as ash. Wrath leaped in Geth’s grasp, momentarily caught by the pulsing of a powerful muscle. Geth tightened his grip and wrenched the sword free in another shower of blood and fragments of blue-black crystal.

Dah’mir staggered once, and toppled over just below the ledge where Batul and the other Gatekeepers stood. Ekhaas cried out and leaped for safety. Geth just watched as Dah’mir’s head bounced on the stones of the cavern floor, his dead eyes staring through the Gatekeeper seal and into the throne room of the master who had abandoned him.

“No! Ekhaas! Keep singing! Keep singing!”

Dandra’s shout dragged Geth around, and for a moment, he just stared at the katalarash as she leaped to join them on the cavern floor. Her hands were stained with blood and Medala’s corpse lay impaled where she had-

Then his mind grasped what his ears were already telling him.

Ekhaas’s countersong had stopped. The katalarash sang alone. His gut leaped. He raised his sword and forced his gauntleted arm up in spite of the pain within it. Not that they would do him much good. There were sixteen katalarash up there. Sixteen heirs to the madness and power of Medala and Virikhad. “Ekhaas!” he called over his shoulder.

It was too late. The song of the katalarash was falling apart. They raised their heads, individuals once more, and looked around. One by one, their eyes found Medala’s body and Dandra’s spear transfixing her. Geth thought he could guess what they were thinking. The woman who had controlled them was gone. The dragon who had kidnapped them was gone. The daelkyr who had brought about their creation was, if not gone, then at least forced back into his prison.

The katalarash were free to do whatever they wanted.

The old woman who had been the second katalarash to awaken-to be reborn-lifted her head from Medala’s corpse and her gaze settled on Ekhaas.

“It’s quiet,” she said.

Her body crumpled to the floor

All of the other katalarash crumpled with her. For a long moment, Geth didn’t dare to breathe and no one dared to move. Finally, Dandra rose from the ground and slid cautiously forward, reaching out to touch the old woman.

“Dead,” she said in amazement.

“No,” said a voice from above. Geth turned toward it. The young kalashtar man who had appeared with Singe and Dandra was on his feet, unsteady but supported by Ashi. Their right and left hands were bound together, the amulet of Vvaraak dangling from them. Ashi’s face was pale. The young man’s eyes looked like he had seen something terrible. His mouth twitched. “Free.”

CHAPTER 26

Then Dah’mir was actually right?” Geth asked. “Something was wrong and they did wake too quickly?”

Dandra shook her head, her black hair shimmering in the pale light of one of the Gatekeepers’ reed torches. “I don’t know. Maybe there was something in Medala and Virikhad’s control that brought the kalashtar minds back before they had the strength to hold onto them. Maybe Ekhaas’s countersong eased their madness to the point that when the song ended, they were able to let themselves die. Maybe Dah’mir simply didn’t understand how the bracers would interact with Taruuzh’s binding stones.”

“Dah’mir knew what he was doing,” Singe said grimly. “We should be thankful Medala and Virikhad tried to take control. The bracers worked.” His jaw tightened. “I felt them work.”

Dandra’s hand reached over and took Singe’s hand as they walked. She didn’t say anything and neither did the wizard.

Geth looked away from them and up the tunnel ahead. Beyond the darkness, there was a patch of brightness-the mouth of the mound and the gray light that came before dawn. He felt an urge to race ahead and throw himself out into clean air beneath open skies.

They’d stayed in the seal cavern no longer than they had to, but they’d still been there longer than he would have liked. Batul had reclaimed the amulet of Vvaraak and the weary Gatekeepers had done what they’d entered the mound to do: reinforce the magic that bound the Master of Silence. No one had asked if Singe’s trick with the binding stone had destroyed the daelkyr. Geth was certain that if the Master of Silence was dead, they’d know.

The binding stones that had been in the bracers worn by the kidnapped kalashtar had been crushed and mixed into new mortar for the seal, just as the ancient druids had crushed Taruuzh’s stones after the long ago Battle of Moths. Singe had stripped the kalashtar’s psicrystals out of the bracers. Moon carried them now in a pouch that he bore with silent solemnity. There had been some debate over what to do with the remains of the kalashtar and of the Gatekeepers who had fallen under Medala’s attack. No one wanted to leave them in a place tainted by Xoriat, but no one had the strength to carry them back to the surface.

Dandra had tapped into the last reserves of her psionic power and called up the droning chorus of whitefire. The bodies of the victims and heroes of Dah’mir’s schemes burned in flames so tightly controlled that it hurt to look at the them, but that spread no heat beyond their confines. Ekhaas had stood over them and sung a dirge that soared louder than even the killing song had.

Medala’s body and Dah’mir’s had received no such respect. They left them where they had fallen, though each of the Gatekeepers had solemnly taken a trophy from Dah’mir’s body-a sliver of the Khyber shard that had been in the dragon’s chest and that Wrath had shattered. After a moment, Singe had knelt and taken two of the slivers as well, passing one to Dandra. She’d accepted it in silence. Ekhaas had taken a sliver too, then Ashi and even Moon.

Geth had been the last to take one of the blue-black fragments. He’d squatted down by Dah’mir’s head and looked into the staring, acid-green eyes, but he hadn’t even been able to think of anything to say. He just felt … empty.

The walk back up through the tunnels from the seal cavern had been eerily silent. There was no sign of the dolgrims. Not a claw in the shadows, not a mutter in the darkness. Partway up, words had finally come to Geth, and he’d begun talking to fill the silence. Singe had joined in and soon they were all talking, describing in hushed tones what had happened on the Shadow Marches, in Sharn, through the days since they’d seen one another last. It was a strangely familiar feeling, one Geth remembered from long-ago mercenary days-walking away from a battle, voices low, working through the bloody chaos of what had just happened. Sometimes victory took time to sink in.

Sometimes it just needed another person’s excitement to tip it over the edge. A form moved against the bright mouth of the mound as they approached it and a shout rang out. Geth heard the words through Wrath, but he would have known the emotion in any language. “They’re alive!”

They emerged from the mound to a roar that shook the moons in the sky. Hands seized the Gatekeepers as soon as they emerged and hauled them away into a crowd of jubilant orcs. News of the defeat of Dah’mir, Medala, and the Master of Silence leaped like fire through the horde and another roar rose up.

“Singe! Dandra! Geth!” Orshok and Natrac burst out of the crowd. Natrac looked like he’d shed half his years. Orshok flung himself at Geth and threw both arms around him.

The enthusiastic embrace sent pain lancing through Geth’s still injured side and arm, but it was no match for the exhilaration that finally surged in him. Geth howled into Orshok’s face and crushed him back.

It took some time before they made it out of the horde and Natrac led them to where the airship floated, a rope ladder dangling over her side and down to the ground. As they approached, two figures rose to meet them. Singe felt his stomach knot at the sight of one of them. Geth, one arm still over Orshok’s shoulders, bared his teeth. “Mithas, you slimy toadstool.”

The sorcerer stood firm. “I have a debt to collect.”

A growl grew out of Geth’s throat. “The only thing you’re going to collect is bruises. Why don’t you just start running for Sharn now?”

“Geth.” Ashi put a dragonmarked hand on the shifter’s arm. She turned to face Mithas. “It’s over. Anyone who could be safe is. You kept your word. I keep mine.” She stood straight. “Take me to the lords of Deneith.”

Singe groaned. “Ashi …”

The hunter shook her head. “It’s my honor, Singe. And Deneith is my clan.” She looked around at the mound and the fading remains of the Bonetree camp and touched the sword at her side. “It’s time for me to learn more about them.”

The smile of greed that spread across Mithas’s face would have shamed a miser. He sneered at Singe and Geth, then grabbed for the rope ladder and climbed up toward the airship.

The half-elf woman who had risen with him waited until he was about halfway up and began casually shaking the ladder. Mithas yelped and cursed as he swayed back and forth, but she didn’t relent and he climbed the rest of the way at a timid pace. Natrac gave her a thin smile. “I like you more every time I see you, Benti. That’s not something I’d often say about a king’s agent.”

Singe saw Geth’s eyebrows rose high in surprise, but he doubted that it could be any greater than the surprise he felt himself. A king’s agent? He looked at Natrac, then at Dandra. “There’s something you didn’t tell us,” he said.

Natrac held out his hand, gesturing in introduction. “Singe, Geth, meet Benti Morren, as she chooses to be known-agent of the King’s Citadel of Breland.” His smile filled out as Singe and Geth gaped in amazement. “I wondered when she helped me escape from Biish if she was more than she seemed to be. After Dandra saved her, she was a little more open with information.”

Benti bent her head in response to their stares. “The Citadel has had its eye on Biish’s gang for some time. When word circulated that he was looking for someone with the Mark of Storm, the Citadel used the opportunity to put me in place within the gang.” Her lips curved very slightly. “I don’t think they expected this. My report should be received with interest.”

Singe felt a fury rise within him. “You were at the helm of Dah’mir’s airship. You were going to fly off with the kalashtar!”

Benti’s expression tightened in response. “No. I found out what was really happening-what I thought was really happening-too late to stop the raid. I was going to take the kalashtar to safety and place Vennet in custody, but when he dragged you onto the deck, I tried to intercede and-” Her voice stopped in her throat as color rushed into her cheeks.

And Vennet, Singe knew, had thrown her over the side.

Dandra took his arm. “When we told her what was really happening, she helped us. I told you that she got us the second airship.” She tilted her head up toward the vessel. “This just isn’t so much stolen as commandeered.”

Singe stared at her and then turned his gaze on Benti. His belly twisted-and the twist turned into a sharp laugh. He shook his head in disbelief. “An agent of the Citadel.” He sighed. “I imagine you’re going to have some explaining to do about the airship.”

Benti’s nose wrinkled. “Which is why I need to get her back. We should be going.” The half-elf turned and put one foot on the ladder, stilling the shivering ropes with an expert touch. She looked at Ashi. “I know you’re going back to Sharn. Anyone else?”

Moon stood forward immediately. “Me.” Benti nodded.

Singe looked at the others-and they looked at him and one another. After a moment, Natrac said, “If you’re going by way of Zarash’ak, I’ll take a ride there.”

“Not back to Sharn?” Benti asked. “Biish is gone. There will be a vacuum in Malleon’s Gate.”

Natrac thrust out his tusks. “Host and Six, no. I’ve had enough with Sharn.” His eyes gleamed. “Besides, I think Zarash’ak could use a new arena.”

“I’ll go with you to Sharn,” said Ekhaas. “It’s closer to Darguun than the Shadow Marches. The other duur’kala will have a new story to sing.”

Singe winced. “Is everyone going to know what we did?”

Ekhaas’s ears twitched forward. “Shouldn’t they?”

He let his breath out through his teeth and looked at Dandra. “Sharn?” he asked. “You could go back to Fan Adar.”

“I could.” She met his eyes. “Will you go back to the Blademarks?”

“I could,” he said-and smiled. “But I don’t think I will, and Sharn’s as good a place to make my resignation as any.”

Dandra raised her chin. “Settle our affairs and move on from there?”

Singe looked at her and felt his heart burn. “Twelve bloody moons, I love you,” he said. He turned to Geth. “What about you?”

The shifter shook his head. “Sharn’s not for me.”

“Back to Bull Hollow?” asked Dandra.

He shook his head again. Orshok spoke up. “You’d be welcome to stay with the Fat Tusk tribe. You’re a hero again, Geth.”

Geth’s face twisted. “Grandfather Rat, enough of that! I know where I’m going.” He stepped back and nodded to all of them. “Safe journey,” he said and turned away.

Dandra drew breath to call something after him, but Singe caught her before she could. “Let him go,” he said.

EPILOGUE

The harsh light of morning reflected off the snow. There were no shadows; light just made more light-icy blue in the dimples of footsteps, white where it flashed on the ice crystals drifting in the air. Geth could recall a spot, high up on the walls that loomed above, where it had once been possible to stand on such a morning and look out for leagues across clear sky, perfect snow, and frozen forest.

Once, the shifter thought, but not now. He reached up, pulled the furry cap from his head, and bared his teeth. His breath streamed away into the Karrnathi winter.

There was a memorial taking place within the walls of Narath, marking ten years to the day that the town had burned and its people had died. Geth didn’t want to be at the memorial. He’d slipped into the town late last night and slipped out again early. The room he’d found had been in an inn he didn’t know, but he didn’t know most of the buildings in the town-almost all of them had been built within the last ten years. The innkeeper was no one he knew either. Like its buildings, much of Narath’s population had been there less than ten years, arriving as the town grew back into itself.

It was hard to avoid signs of the massacre, though. The town and its people might seem new, but the people of Karrnath had old memories. Shrines in the town held heaped skulls and walls of stacked bones. Every old building showed charred timbers. Every new building had a bit of burned wood fixed like a talisman above the door. In many places, the scorch marks of a raging fire still stained the town’s walls. And there were monuments. Statues. Pillars. Markers. Stone. Rough wood. Dedicated to victims. Dedicated to heroes.

Geth had expected a plaque fixed to the wall. He hadn’t expected a whole bronze statue. Raised up on a plinth, a muscular man stood in a pose of heroic defense, his thick hair curling like a lion’s mane, his eyes fixed defiantly into the distance. In one hand, he held a heavy sword. With the other, he gripped the severed head of an Aundairian raider.

Had the sculptor known or was it just an ironic coincidence?

Wreaths of flowers had been laid in memorial at the base of the plinth in some earlier ceremony, laid carefully around the dedication plaque to leave it clear.

Coron Balich. Defender of Narath, true son of Karrnath. Betrayed by a coward. Died a hero, Olarune 4, 989 YK. May his sacrifice inspire generations.

Geth dropped to his knees in the snow and closed his eyes. In his memory, Coron leaped forward to meet the charging raiders and was brutally hamstrung. In his memory, one of the raiders grabbed a handful of Coron’s black curls, jerked his head back, and raised a heavy knife. In his memory, Geth charged without thinking.

The knife had fallen before Geth could reach Coron, but at least his killer had died. So had four other raiders-but not the one who swung a heavy club. Geth had woken to an aching head, snow red with blood and a sky black with smoke. The raiders were gone. Narath had fallen and screams came from the burning town.

Snow crunched under approaching feet. The approaching footfalls stopped for a long moment, then crunched forward again to stop at Geth’s side.

“I thought you might come here,” said Singe.

Geth glance up. The wizard was bundled in a Karrnathi-style coat topped off with a thick cloak. A dark hat with a wide brim was pulled well down, hiding his face and much of his blond hair, while his chin and the whiskers on it were hidden by a heavy scarf. Neither hat nor scarf could hide the black patch that covered his left eye, though. Geth let out a slow breath and stood up.

“Did you know about the statue?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen it before, but I’d heard about it, yes,” Singe said. “It was only erected a few years ago. It got some tempers up in the Blademarks. The lords of Deneith thought that erecting a memorial in front of a dung gate-” His hand rose and flicked toward a rusty, filth encrusted grate set into the wall a short distance away “-wasn’t dignified, even if it was just for a rank and file mercenary. The elders of Narath insisted that the memorial stand where Coron fell. Eventually the crown of Karrnath became involved, and the elders won.”

He looked over the statue. “Coron has become quite the local hero. I don’t know what he would have thought of it himself, considering he wasn’t the only one who died defending the gate. Robrand and I found both him and Bikk that day.”

“Bikk wasn’t Karrnathi,” said Geth.

The wizard glanced at him and added. “The struggle messed up the snow. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if what Robrand and I really understood what we saw.”

“You saw right,” Geth told him bluntly. “There were three men defending the gate. Coron and Bikk died. I ran away.” Singe tilted his head and narrowed his eye.

“Ekhaas,” he said, “told Dandra that Wrath wouldn’t bear the touch of a coward.”

Geth growled. “Ekhaas told me that I didn’t understand honor.”

Singe’s eyebrows rose. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” He turned away from Coron’s statue.

Singe caught his arm. “Geth, what happened here? You’re the only one who knows the whole story. I spent years hating you because I blamed you for a massacre.”

Geth shook off the wizard’s hand. “So did I,” he said.

Singe sighed. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” he asked.

Geth didn’t answer him.

Singe shook his head. “All right then.” He reached into a pocket, brought out a silver flask, and twisted the top off it. “To our friends,” he said, raising it. He drank and held the flask out.

Geth took it and raised it first to Singe, then to Coron’s statue. “To other people’s heroes,” he said.

Content

Don Bassingthwaite
The Killing Song

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

EPILOGUE