The Binding Stone

CHAPTER 1

The golden light of late afternoon filled the little valley like honey. Insects flashed as they drifted through the still air, lazy now that midsummer’s fierce heat had passed from the far west of the Eldeen Reaches. There was a spot Geth knew of, up high on the valley’s northern slope, where a slab of bare rock thrust out from the trees. On an afternoon like this, there was nowhere better to lie out and bask in the sun, alone with the sky, the forest, and the stone.

On another afternoon, the shifter thought, but not today. He shook thick, sweat-damp brown hair out of his eyes and growled between sharp teeth, “They’re toying with us, Adolan. Three times back and forth across the valley. Are they going to run us all the way to the Shadowcrags?”

Well-worn leather leggings whispered as Adolan paused and looked back along the valley’s length. His nose, sharp and pointed as human noses tended to be, crinkled. “If we take a straight path, it’s not so far back to Bull Hollow.”

Geth stared at his friend, then blinked wide amber eyes. “You’d see the Ring of Siberys in a mud puddle,” he grumbled in annoyance.

Adolan’s smile broke through his red-brown beard. “What’s the matter, Geth?” he asked. “Can’t enjoy your fleas when someone’s scratching you?”

Geth paused in the act of reaching to scratch at the thick sideburns that grew down a shifter’s jaw line. Another low growl rolled up out of his throat. The heavy hair on the back of his neck and on his forearms rose and his lips pulled away from his teeth. “If one of my fleas ever bit your thin skin, Ado, we’d need a needle and thread to sew up the wound!”

“Then it’s good thing they like your furry hide better, isn’t it?”

“Small-eye human.”

“Furball shifter.” Adolan held out a flat packet. “Jerky?”

“Tak.” Geth plucked a strip of the dried meat from the druid’s packet with thick, heavy-nailed fingers. He stuck it in his mouth and sucked at the smoky saltiness for a moment, then said around the meat, “They are toying with us, though.”

“They’re too bold,” Adolan said as he took a piece of jerky for himself. “We’re closer to them than they think. We’ll catch them soon.”

The tall human slid the jerky into his mouth and started walking again, eyes scanning the ground for signs of their quarry. Geth followed him at an easy, loping gait. “Do you think they’ll talk?” he asked. “I hate it when they talk.”

Adolan’s only answer was the slow grind of flat teeth on jerky. Geth snapped at his jerky twice. Sharp teeth tore the hard meat into slivers. “More?” he grunted.

Adolan tossed him the packet.

“There’s something in the woods,” Sandar had said when he dropped by their cabin that morning. The man who owned the last inn in the Eldeen had somehow appointed himself the mouthpiece of Bull Hollow’s elders.

“There are a lot of things in the woods, Sandar,” Geth had told him with his usual bluntness.

Blunt words rolled off Sandar like water. “A lot of things,” the elder had replied, “don’t come prowling around people’s farms.”

Adolan had stepped in, as he so often did, before things deteriorated too far. “Bull Hollow doesn’t have any shortage of hunters, Sandar,” he had pointed out.

Sandar had crossed his hands over his belly. “Bull Hollow only has two hunters who can take on whatever dragged Ellio Tuck’s biggest breeding sow out of her pen and carried her off toward the high valleys.”

Geth and Adolan had been on the trail by mid-morning.

Fortunately, their quarry had been easy to track-and to identify. Two trails of massive cat-like paws traced around Tuck’s farm, led to the remains of an enormous sow in the woods, and continued on up into the higher reaches of the forest. Two trails, but with six paws to each trail. Deep scratches had been torn in the wood of the sow’s pen and high on tree trunks along the trail, all without any of the twelve paws leaving the ground. Only displacer beasts-six legs and a pair of barbed tentacles sprouting from the shoulders-left spoor like that.

Not even Adolan could argue that the beasts might be passing through on their way to new hunting ground. Everywhere was a displacer beast’s hunting ground. The monsters were dumb enough to hunt anything they came across-and just smart enough to get away with it.

An uneasy thought made the hair on Geth’s arms and neck stand up again. How long had the beasts known they were being followed? Had they been toying with their pursuers even before they reached the valley?

Had the beasts led him and Adolan here deliberately?

The beasts’ trail turned back down toward the valley floor. Geth scanned the valley through gaps in the trees. The valley was uninhabited, so no chance of allies. Lots of crags and displaced boulders. Steep sides. A narrow lower mouth that was easily guarded, an upland slope that was steep and more easily descended than climbed. A good place for an ambush.

Suddenly the gentle gold of afternoon light seemed harsh and the lazy hum of insects an annoying drone. “Ado,” Geth said, “I think the beasts are trying to turn the hunt on us.”

“I know,” Adolan answered, “but don’t worry.” He twitched his head toward the sky. “Breek is watching over us.”

Geth glanced up. High above, the black dot of an eagle skimmed against bright blue. Adolan’s half-wild bird was on guard. He let out a grunt of relief. Breek’s eyes would spot any tricks the displacer beasts might try. Even so, his hands went to his belt and touched the paired, short-hafted axes that hung on either side of his waist.

“How far ahead of us do you think they are?” he asked.

“Not far. They came this way about the same time we were at the top of the slope. They’re taking their time, walking slow.” Adolan pointed at a patch of fallen leaves and Geth glanced at it as they passed. Paws had pushed the leaves down into the damp earth underneath. The prints were evenly spaced and well formed. The displacer beast that had made them was in no hurry.

He would have rather the beast had been running. He stuffed the packet of jerky into a pouch on his belt and drew one of the axes. Adolan glanced back and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

As they reached the valley floor, however, the druid paused. Geth stepped up beside him. “What?” he murmured.

Adolan pointed again. Geth followed his gesture. He hadn’t practiced woodcraft to the same degree as Adolan for a long time, but some skills never faded. A stream passed through this part of the valley. All around its soft banks, the grass was crushed as if the beasts had milled around like excited kittens before turning aside from their path across the valley and abandoning their casual pace. Their paws had ripped into the ground as they opened up their stride to follow the stream back down the valley’s length.

Geth stepped out into the open and slid up to the stream. Stamped in the soft ground were the marks of shod human-or at the very least, humanoid-feet. “Ado!” he hissed.

Adolan crouched down. “Ring of Siberys,” he murmured in surprise. “I think we know what got the displacer beasts excited.” He reached down and traced the shape of the footprint. “Sandals. Well-worn. And on the feet of someone light. A woman or maybe an elf.”

“No one lives in this valley.” Geth turned and peered upstream. There were traces of passage on the grass. He paced swiftly back alongside the water. More footprints revealed themselves in an unsteady line, some prints deeper and harder than others. He lifted his gaze. In the distance, the water that became the stream spilled over the steep slope at the top of the valley in a fine white cascade. He returned to Adolan’s side. “I think they came down out of the hills. They’re staggering-probably tired or wounded. They must have come a long way.”

“Well, they’ve staggered right into the path of the worst predators this valley has seen for decades,” Adolan said. He reached behind his back and freed the spear that he carried. “I think the displacer beasts have forgotten about us-they have a new toy. We need to hurry.”

Geth tightened his grip on his axe and flexed the thick muscles of his arms and shoulders. “Cousin Bear, finally!”

Adolan winced. “You don’t have to sound so eager.”

“We’ve been tracking all day. I want a fight!”

“And shifters wonder why other races feel uncomfortable around them.”

“My ancestors were predators,” Geth replied, baring his teeth.

“You’ve argued the point for me,” said Adolan in resignation. He turned and began trotting along the displacer beasts’ path. Geth shrugged, smiled, and loped along after him.

The beasts’ run slowed to a pace better suited for stealth-short bursts of speed interspersed with long moments of patient stillness. The mix of shallow toe-prints and deeper flat paw-prints told the story of their stalking. Woven among the beasts’ trail were the sandal prints of their prey, light and staggering but-to Geth’s surprise-still swift. “Whoever they are,” he grunted, “they move fast.”

Less than a dozen paces further on, Adolan grabbed his arm and pulled him quickly and silently behind a cluster of tall feathery grass by the stream’s edge. He gestured ahead. Geth nodded and rose up just enough to peer past the grass.

Ahead, the stream turned to flow around a steep rise in the valley floor. One of the displacer beasts was climbing that slope. The other already crouched atop it, peering intently down the other side. In general shape, the beasts resembled mountain lions, but so thin that every muscle stood out on their spare, six-legged frames. The thin, flexible tentacles that sprouted from their shoulders reached out to twine around saplings and branches. The tentacles ended in flat pads covered in horrid barbs that stripped the bark away from the wood.

The beasts’ blue-black fur carried a weird shimmer that made it hard to focus on them. One moment, they appeared to be in one spot-in the next, they seemed to have shifted by several feet. Geth had to squeeze his eyes closed and open them again to be sure there really were two of the creatures.

The beast still climbing the slope was easily the size of a horse. The one at the crest of the slope was bigger still, its tentacles as thick as fat serpents. A strange, throbbing growl was building in its lean, corded throat.

It took Geth a moment to realize that the huge beast was purring with bloodthirsty pleasure. A heartbeat later, it sank down low to the ground and slid forward out of sight. The second followed.

“They’re closing in!” he snarled.

“Go!” urged Adolan. “I have your back!”

Geth tore through the tall grass. He surged up to the crest of the slope, bounding and leaping from side to side with an ease no human could have matched. At the top of the rise, he paused long enough to take in the scene below. Through the trees and a little off to one side was one of the rocky outcroppings that dotted the valley like enormous roots thrust up by the hills. The displacer beasts had joined together, the larger of the two taking the lead. Their prey stood cornered against the outcropping.

Geth’s eyes narrowed. Adolan’s assessment of the footprints by the stream had been right-the beast’s prey was a woman and a human. His own judgment had been right as well, though. The woman must have come a long way because she certainly wasn’t from the Eldeen. Her skin was an exotic bronze-brown color and her hair was long, straight, and black. Weariness showed clearly in her face, but Geth saw her push it aside and ready a short spear with a pale shaft and a strangely crystalline head, then look up to glare at the larger beast with single-minded determination.

She was brave, but bravery wasn’t going to save her against two vicious displacer beasts. Geth swept his arms wide, drew in a deep breath, and … shifted.

Somewhere deep, deep in the past the gift of lycanthropy, the ability to take the form of wolves, bears, tigers, and other animals, had risen in humans. Those who possessed it, whether naturally or by way of a curse, found themselves shunned-as predators and worse-by those who did not. They began to keep to themselves, favoring secrecy or the company of other shapeshifters. Among those shapeshifters who bred only with their own kind, the lines of lycanthropy stayed true. Where they bred with normal humans, though, or where they fell in love and mated with those of another line, the blood of the lycanthropes mingled and combined. The children born of such unions weren’t fully human, but neither were they lycanthropes. They were strong, they were fast, and they were marked by the blood of beasts. They might not have been able to take the animal form of their lycanthrope parent, but they could take on some of its qualities.

Generation to generation, the traits bred true. Over time a new race was born, neither human nor lycanthrope nor animal, but something of each. They became the weretouched. The shifters.

Geth’s ancient heritage rose up from deep within him, spreading out from the core of his being. Some shifters manifested terrible claws, others massive fangs, still others astounding speed or heightened senses. Geth’s gift from his lycanthrope ancestors was sheer toughness. Strength seeped into bones and flooded his flesh. His skin hardened and his hair became coarse like an animal’s tough hide. A sense of invincibility swept through him. For the moment at least, he felt unstoppable!

He let out the breath he had drawn in a tremendous roar and bounded down the slope, heading straight for the smaller displacer beast. His sudden appearance had both the creatures and their intended prey off balance-the dark-haired woman stared in shock as the displacer beasts whirled around to face this new threat. They were slow, though. The smaller beast sent barbed tentacles questing toward them. He shouted out another roar and swung his axes in twin arcs.

The natural magic of displacer beasts made them difficult to fight and attacking one took a combination of both skill and luck. As the beast’s tentacles lashed toward him, Geth spun aside and chopped blindly. His left-hand weapon bit into unseen flesh. More than a foot away, the beast’s tentacle sheared apart and the horny barbed pad at its end fell to the ground.

The beast’s screeches of pain as it scrambled away were almost loud enough to drown out the sound of Adolan’s chanted prayer as he called upon the powers of the forest to lend them aid. A breeze seemed to blow through the trees, stirring vines, branches, prickly bushes and tall stalks of grass-except that Geth felt nothing in the air.

All around the retreating beast, however, the stirring intensified as the plants of forest answered the druid’s call, whipping into sudden life and twining around the monster. The beast squealed and struggled to free itself from their entangling grasp. Geth bared his teeth. The weak plants wouldn’t hold the creature for long, but they would slow it down. As Adolan came sliding down the slope, spear at the ready, Geth whirled to face the larger beast.

The creature was crouched low to the ground and growling, its eyes darting between Geth and the cornered woman as it tried to grasp the turn of events. Its wide green eyes shrank to slits and its tentacles swayed dangerously. “Get back!” it yowled. “Get back and live! My prey! Mine!”

Geth’s teeth clenched. They do talk, he thought. Damn. He bent his knees, sinking into a defensive posture, and stretched out his arms, axes ready for an attack.

And an attack came-but not against him.

The determination that the dark-haired woman had worn like a shield seemed to condense abruptly into outrage. “Prey?” she cried. “Prey? I am no one’s prey, you hideous dahr!”

She took a step forward … and her sandaled feet rose off the ground. As if lifted up by her anger, she floated a foot or more above the forest floor, her eyes and face shining with fury. Her hand stabbed at the beast. Abruptly, a sound like a chorus of voices seemed to fill Geth’s ears and a stream of white flames lanced from the woman’s hand toward the beast.

The monster screeched and twisted-and where Geth would have thought that the flames would lap against its flank, instead they hissed through empty air. The woman’s aim had been fooled by the beast’s glamer. It lunged at her, tentacles flailing. The move seemed to catch her by surprise. She managed to slip under one tentacle, her feet sliding across the air, but the other whirled around and caught her with a hard slap across the chest. Her spear flew out of her hand and she slammed backward into the rocks with an audible thud. Her still body slid back down to the ground.

The displacer beast whirled back toward Geth. “Die you now! Yes! Die!” A tentacle lashed at him. Geth raised an arm, blocking. The barbed pad at the tentacle’s end ripped away the fabric of his sleeve and gouged at his flesh. Anyone else would have had their skin flayed by the attack. Geth’s shifting-toughened hide was left with nothing worse than deep scratches.

“Die now?” he snarled in mocking imitation of the beast’s screeching voice. “Yes!”

He leaped in close, hacking and chopping with his axes. The beast dodged back, countering with tentacles and-if Geth got too close-a vicious swipe from one of its six clawed feet. His shifting heritage protected him from the worst damage of its attacks, though, just as the beast’s magic kept most of his blows away from it.

It still managed to hit him more often than he hit it, though. In moments, he was bleeding from a half a dozen deep gouges, and the displacer beast was grinning with mad blood lust. Geth stumbled back, breathing hard. A tentacle grabbed his leg, yanked, and he was on the ground, staring up at the beast.

“More prey!” the creature screamed. “More!” Its head darted down, jaws wide.

Geth dropped one axe and snapped the other up crossways against his body, clutching it with both hands. The stout wood of the shaft jammed across the beast’s open jaws like a horse’s bridle. The beast tried to shake it out, but Geth pushed back, pressing the axe up. The creature’s tentacles wrapped around his arms and tried to pull them aside. Geth’s arms were stronger-at least for the moment. “Ado!” he roared.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the druid. The smaller displacer beast had managed to rip its way free of the twining forest plants. Adolan held it at bay with his spear, shifting and thrusting to ward off the creature’s lunging attacks. His eyes darted to Geth, though, then up to the sky. He feinted, then jumped away as the creature reacted to the false attack. In the clear for a moment, he drew a deep breath, folded his lower lip under his front teeth, and let out two clear, piercing whistles.

The sky seemed to fall on the displacer beast that had Geth pinned as Breek came plummeting down like a feathered lightning bolt. With an accuracy that no human eye could have matched, the eagle struck the displacer beast square in the back. Wicked talons tore at the creature’s blue-black hide and the beast let out a deafening screech of pain and alarm. It twisted around on itself, desperately trying to strike at this new attacker. As it reared back and its tentacles released his arms, Geth threw himself away from it.

His hand closed on the shaft of the unconscious woman’s fallen spear, and he rolled to his feet with the weapon in his grip. The weapon was lighter than he expected, its shaft carved from some light, almost-wood, and its head forged of a metal with a delicate, almost crystalline sparkle. It looked needle-sharp, though, and that was what mattered. “Ado, I’m clear!” he shouted.

The second beast had turned its attention back to the druid, its tentacles lashing like serpents. This time, though, it looked like it was trying to seize the spear and tear it away. Adolan let out another whistle.

With a harsh screech and a mighty flurry of wings, Breek launched himself from the back of the larger displacer beast straight toward the smaller. The creature wheeled to meet the bird’s attack, but at the last moment, Breek’s wings spread wide and he swooped up and out of reach. The beast twisted around again-only to be met with the point of Adolan’s spear as the druid charged. Sharp metal buried itself deep in the creature’s chest. Its tentacles lashed frantically at the air, then fell still as it slumped to the ground. The larger beast screamed in anger. “Chosen! Mate!” Its head snapped around to glare at Geth and it surged toward him.

Geth shifted his weight as the beast’s tentacles swept at him again, swaying back, but not giving ground. The tentacles came close enough for him to hear the hiss as they lashed the air. Guided by sound rather than sight, Geth jabbed out sharply with the woman’s spear-piercing the wide pad of the beast’s tentacle and pinning it to the earth of the valley floor. The beast roared and tried to wrench the pinned tentacle free, simultaneously raking at Geth with the other. The shifter roared just as loudly with the scourging pain of the blows that hammered at his back, but he reached down and wrapped his hand around the tentacle. As the beast roared out again, he pulled hard on it, hauling himself forward. The displacer’s beast’s eyes went wide in sudden panic. Following the taut, struggling tentacle, Geth swung his axe in a powerful overhand blow.

The blade hacked straight into the beast’s narrow skull.

A shudder passed through its body, then it collapsed to the ground and lay still.

Geth let go of the axe and staggered back. “They’re both dead?” he wheezed as Adolan came trotting over.

Adolan glanced at Breek as the bird flapped down from above, settled onto a tentacle, and began to tear at the limp flesh with his hooked beak. “Breek says yes,” he said.

“Good.” Geth sagged to his knees and released his hold on his shifting-granted endurance. As it drained away, the wounds he had suffered seemed ten times as painful. He clenched his teeth as the shifting tugged on the worst of the injuries, but it was still too much. He gasped out loud and almost fell over.

“Easy,” murmured Adolan. Geth felt the druid touch his bloodied back, then heard him murmur a prayer.

Nature’s power swirled around them like a summer breeze. A sweet ache throbbed across Geth’s back as his wounds closed. He groaned with relief and opened his eyes. “Twice tak,” he said.

Adolan smiled briefly, then slapped Geth’s newly healed shoulder. “A pair of displacer beasts between two men and a bird,” said the druid. “We’re lucky the beasts were still young!”

“Young?” Geth forced himself to his feet. “They would have gotten bigger?”

“Not necessarily. But they would have gotten smarter.” Adolan knelt down beside the fallen woman and touched her face lightly with the tips of his fingers. She groaned quietly. Geth pulled her spear out of the ground and shook the beast’s tentacle off of it, then moved over to stand above Adolan.

“How is she?” he asked.

“She’ll be all right,” Adolan replied. His fingers probed the back of the woman’s head underneath her hair. Her face contorted and she stirred uneasily. Adolan’s eyes drifted shut and he spoke a second prayer of healing. Once again, Geth felt nature itself stir to the druid’s call. The dark-haired woman’s face eased. Her breathing drifted and became regular. Adolan lifted his hand away. “I can feel her exhaustion. More than anything, she needs sleep,” he said. “She’ll stay this way until we can get back to Bull Hollow.” He studied her face. “She’s not like anyone I’ve ever seen. And the spell of fire that she cast was strange, too. That strange sound that came with it wasn’t like any priest’s prayer or wizard’s invocation.”

Geth tilted his head and looked closely at the woman. Her bronze-brown face was long and almost too elegant, her skin smooth and flawless, though darkened by long exposure to the sun. A twisted band of polished bronze circled her head and wide, decorative bracers of the same metal wrapped her forearms. A simple cord around her neck supported a woven spiral of thick bronze wires. Caught within the spiral was a cloudy green-yellow crystal the size of two of his fingers held side by side. Her clothes, as well as the sandals on her feet, showed the strain of long travel, though the woman was hardly dressed for it: she wore only a short, light shirt and tapered pants, with a fringe that wrapped around her waist. In spite of the wear on it, the fabric of her clothes was a rich, deep red embroidered with gold-colored thread in strange and exotic patterns. Geth glanced at the spear in his hand. The shaft below the crystalline metal of the head was worked in similar patterns.

“I don’t think she’s a wizard or a priest, Adolan,” he said. “And that was no spell. I’ve seen her kind before.”

Adolan looked up at him. “In the Eldeen?” he asked, his voice low and cautious.

Geth shook his head. “No. It was … before I came to Bull Hollow.” Geth’s jaw tightened. He gestured to the woman’s distinctive clothes and spear, to her fine features. “She’s a kalashtar.”

Only the vaguest kind of recognition flickered in Adolan’s eyes. “Kalashtar come from the east,” Geth explained. “Far to the east-across the Dragonreach and the Sea of Rage, from Sarlona.” He glanced down at the sleeping woman. “I saw some of her kind in Rekkenmark in Karrnath. A wizard told me that they have powers that aren’t like any magic we know.” He touched his forehead. “It’s some kind of mind-magic.”

Adolan’s eyes narrowed and his nose crinkled. “Do they all float like that when they fight?” Geth shook his head. “What do you think she’s doing in the Eldeen Reaches?

“I don’t know,” said Geth. He drew a deep breath. “But I don’t think it’s safe to take her back to Bull Hollow. We should leave her here.”

“Geth!”

“Trouble followed every kalashtar I ever saw, Adolan.” Geth gestured to the carnage around them.

“She stumbled across young displacer beasts looking for prey. We already knew they were dangerous.” Adolan stood up. “And she’s asleep. What trouble can she bring down on us?”

“She’ll wake up sooner or later. There must be some reason she’s stumbling through the hills in exhaustion.”

Adolan crossed his arms and fixed him with a glare. “She’s most likely lost. We can’t just leave her, Geth. The displacer beasts were the most dangerous things in the forest, but they weren’t the only danger. We need to take her with us.” When Geth glowered, he raised his eyebrows. “Are your fleas bothering you again, furball?”

Geth bared his teeth. “I don’t like it,” he said.

“You don’t like much of anything. Think on this: we dealt with the displacer beasts and saved a life today. Be happy with that.”

Geth’s lips pinched back together. “Ring of Siberys in a mud puddle, Ado.”

“With you around, someone has to be the optimist.” Adolan walked over to the area of brush that had been animated by his prayer. A few long vines still squirmed across the ground. The druid grabbed them and began gathering them like some kind of strange, wild rope. “Find me two long, sturdy branches. We need to make a litter.”