The Binding Stone

CHAPTER 3

“No! Singe howled. He shoved off from the ground and lunged back to his feet, sprinting after the fleeing shifter. The fiery sphere of his spell was in the way. Ignoring the startled cries of Toller and the folk of Bull Hollow alike, he dove through it without hesitation. The fire tickled his skin, but no more-the ring on his left hand shielded him, devouring any flame that touched his body. Momentarily light blind, he peered into the darkness ahead. Geth was a shadowy figure disappearing into a wall of trees.

The strange bellow sounded again, but Singe barely registered it, just as he barely registered the calls from the people left behind on the common. “You’re not getting away again, Geth!” he hissed-and plunged into the trees.

The bare earth of a path glimmered briefly in the moonlight, then the silver illumination was cut off by the thick branches overhead. For long moments, Singe’s only guide was the thrashing of Geth’s progress through the bush. Jaw clenched, Singe followed as best as he could, rapier held low and one arm up in front of his face to ward off lashing branches.

Then he realized that the only thrashing in the woods was coming from him. He froze instantly, breath catching in his throat, as a thin silence spread out among the dark trees. He held up his rapier and murmured a cantrip over it. Clear, steady light spread out from the blade-but penetrated less than half a dozen paces in any direction around him. Leaves and trunks, branches and bushes, all cast shadows that made seeing any further impossible. Singe turned slowly, trying to spot the trail that he had made as he crashed through the undergrowth.

The shifting shadows made that impossible, too.

“Twelve bloody moons!” he breathed. He was alone and lost in a dark forest-with an angry shifter somewhere close by. Glowing rapier held high, he moved slowly forward.

With every few paces, the deep, mysterious bellow rolled through the night again and again. Singe gritted his teeth against it, then hesitated for a moment. Without a point of reference, he could end up walking in circles.

“Twelve bloody moons!” he cursed again. He turned and began moving in the direction of the bellow’s source.

Geth emerged onto a trail while Singe was still crashing around among the trees. With any luck, the Aundairian would take precious moments-or even longer-to find his way clear. Nine years ago, Singe had been a skilled swordsman and he was still clearly every bit the wizard Geth remembered him to be, but unless a great deal had changed in nine years, he was no woodsman.

The shifter looked down at his thick, hairy hands. They were shaking. Geth clenched them into fists and darted along the trail. The roaring bellow continued to echo as he ran. He tried to put it out of his mind. He was lucky that it had distracted Singe and given him the chance he needed to break away, but of all the times …

Duty and fear tore at him. Geth bit his lip. “Grandmother Wolf, forgive what I do.”

Three trails came together, part of the web of paths that laced the forest around Bull Hollow. His feet slid as he changed direction and charged down one of the other trails. Moments later, the trees opened up into the clearing around the cabin.

The door of the cabin stood open, spilling light into the yard.

Geth slid to a stop. Even if Adolan had left in a hurry, he would have closed the door. Breek was nowhere to be seen. Geth approached the cabin cautiously. “Ado?” he called. “Ado?” He flattened himself against the outer wall and darted his head through the cabin’s door.

The stink of scorched leather and singed hair stung his nostrils even before he caught the soft groan as Adolan stirred on the floor inside the door. Geth sucked in a sharp breath and bounded to his side. It took no more than a glance to see that the kalashtar woman was gone. He grabbed Adolan’s hand and hauled him to his feet.

“What did she do to you?” he growled.

“A burst of fire,” said Adolan. He rubbed a hand across his forehead and winced at his own touch. The skin of his face was reddened, but no worse. “The heat was so intense it took my breath away, but it doesn’t seem like it did much real damage.”

Another bellow rolled on the air. Adolan gasped and pulled away. “Ring of Siberys! The Bull Hole! How could I …” He darted around the cabin, snatching up a satchel stitched with strange symbols, his spear, and a jerkin of stiff, heavy hide.

Geth stood still, watching him with a heavy heart. After a moment, the druid realized that he wasn’t moving and paused. “Geth, what’s wrong?” His face tightened. “Where’s Breek? I sent him to fetch you.”

“Then he’s still looking for me,” Geth said. His gut twisted. “Ado, House Deneith has found me. One of the Frostbrand-one of Robrand’s lieutenants. Singe. He was in Sandar’s.” Geth drew a shuddering breath. “I have to leave.”

Silence fell heavily as Adolan stared. “Now?” asked the druid, his voice thin and disbelieving.

Yet another bellow punctuated the question. Geth spread his hands helplessly. “I told you Deneith might come looking for me.”

“I know what you told me.” Adolan ground his teeth together. He leaned his spear against the nearest wall and wrenched the hide jerkin over his head. When his face emerged, his eyes were angry. “But I can’t believe that you’d leave now or ever. Are you just going to keep running? Bull Hollow needs you!”

“Bull Hollow isn’t going to want me around when they find out the truth.”

Adolan glared at him. “So you’ll abandon your friends in the face of danger?” He paused for half a heartbeat and added, “Like you did at Narath.”

The druid’s word stung like salt rubbed into a wound. A growl tore itself out of Geth’s throat. “It’s not the same!” he snapped.

“Isn’t it?” Adolan asked. He settled the satchel over his shoulders and picked up his spear again. He looked up and his eyes softened. “Geth, fight! Forget the Frostbrand. Forget Singe. He’s in as much danger tonight as any of us. Tomorrow I’ll either stand with you in front of the Hollow or we’ll leave together.”

He held out his hand.

Geth stared at it as the bellow rolled over Bull Hollow once more-then he bared his teeth and slapped his hand down to grasp the druid’s forearm. Adolan’s hand closed tight on his forearm in return.

“You have Grandmother Wolf’s own honor,” he said.

“I have Cousin Boar’s own stupidity,” Geth grunted.

He released Adolan’s arm and turned to the chest against the wall. Digging down into its depths, he came up with a large, blanket-wrapped bundle that clanked as he set it on the cabin floor. Adolan stared at him in amazement. Geth responded with a glower, daring him to say anything.

Something lurked in the trees overhead, peering down out of the darkness. Singe prayed that it wasn’t Geth. Half blind from the light that shone from his rapier, he could see little enough, but in the course of more than a decade of serving with the Blademarks, he had learned to recognize the feeling of being watched. He continued along the path that he had finally stumbled onto a short while earlier. The strange bellows still rolled out across the valley from somewhere ahead. If whatever was in the trees made any sound, the bellow drowned it out.

Singe kept his eyes on the ground or on the shadows ahead, anywhere but up. With every step, awareness of the thing in the trees prickled across the back of his neck. He forced himself to remain calm, to stay relaxed as he moved closer to the thing. It didn’t seem to move, but he could feel it still watching him. Closer …

Directly underneath it, he stopped sharply, glanced up, and, flinging an arm over his eyes, snapped out a brittle word.

Up among the leaves, light burst in dazzling flash. There was a harsh croak and something crashed through the branches toward a clear patch of sky. Even with his eyes shaded against the flare, Singe only caught a glimpse of a big, ungainly bird flapping away. Scraggly legs trailed through the air behind it and a long neck curved back on itself. Singe’s eyes widened slightly.

A heron, he thought. Twelve moons, what’s a heron doing in the forest?

There was a soft rustle behind him.

Singe’s heart leaped into his throat as he whirled around, sword outstretched, another spell smoldering on his lips and at his fingertips.

At the edge of the path, as if emerging from a hiding place, a woman crouched in a virtually identical pose. Her right hand held a short, pale spear at the ready. Her left was pointed at him in a gesture very much like a wizard prepared to unleash a spell. Her feet, he realized, didn’t touch the ground. Instead, she hovered with no apparent effort.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Singe studied the woman-he was certain she was doing the same to him-without moving his eyes. To judge by her sharp features and exotic clothing, she was a kalashtar.

And a kalashtar deep in the Eldeen was even stranger than a heron in the forest.

Very slowly, the woman uncoiled. Spear and hand both remained pointing at him as she drifted out onto the path and slid the length of a pace along it in the same direction Singe had been heading. He turned with her, keeping her boxed between the edge of his rapier and his own waiting spell. The woman slid another pace, spear and hand still rock steady-

The tension between them shattered as a lean figure leaped screaming out of the darkness. Singe didn’t understand a word that it uttered, if they were words, and caught only a glimpse of the crude axe that it swung. He simply snapped around and spat the word of his spell.

The kalashtar woman’s pointing fingers shifted at the same moment. A droning chorus of sound beat against Singe’s ears, the sound of her race’s weird power.

Twin blasts of churning energy caught the screaming figure and wrapped it in flame-red-orange from Singe’s hand, white from the woman’s. Its battle cry changed into a shriek of pain, then broke sharply as the figure spun around and fell to the ground. For a moment, the only sound in the forest was the soft crackle of fire.

Singe edged closer and peered through the burning brilliance. Their attacker had been a man dressed in rough, worn clothing, his hair strung with beads, his ears and his nose pierced through with lengths of wood and bone. The wizard turned to look at the kalashtar with respect.

“Singe,” he said simply.

“Dandra,” she replied. Her voice was rich like spices, but strained. “There will be more of them. We have to run.”

The dull rhythm of feet pounding on dry earth pulled on Singe’s ears. “Too late!” he hissed, and took two fast steps backward to stand at Dandra’s side.

They appeared from the shadows at a run-three more men and a hard, thin woman whose head had been shaved and marked with tattoos. They didn’t even glance at the flaming corpse of the first attacker, but at the sight of Singe and Dandra, they broke into the same weird war cry the dead man had uttered. If it was meant to frighten their victims, Singe thought, it was very effective. His hand clenched on the hilt of his rapier. “You strike left!” he gasped to Dandra.

He hoped that she understood, but didn’t wait to see. He spoke a new word of magic and the fingers of his free hand flicked a trio of bright sparks at one of the men on the right. The man’s war cry broke and he staggered-but kept coming. Singe saw Dandra point left and again he heard a choral drone. White fire lanced from Dandra’s fingertips but this time the man she had chosen as her target ducked and rolled beneath the blast. Behind him, green leaves and twigs burst into flame like dry tinder.

Singe had the time to mutter a curse, then their attackers were on them.

He slid to the side as the man he had targeted with his magic swung with a thick club. His rapier darted out but the man flinched back, bringing the club around in a weak counter. Singe rocked back to avoid the blow-and almost lost a good portion of his head to a wild strike from an axe wielded by the tattooed woman. He staggered to the side, found his balance, and settled back into a fighting stance just in time to ward off the woman as she pressed her attack.

A glance showed that Dandra was having trouble as well. The two men facing her were armed with long knives, and while Dandra’s spear gave her a greater reach, she was hard-pressed to keep both men back. As she thrust at one man, the other lunged at her. She moved with tremendous grace, spinning and shifting as if she only needed to think about moving. It still wasn’t enough. She caught one with a crack of the spear shaft across his forehead-blood welled up and began to drip into his eyes-but the second slipped past her guard and got around on her other side.

And in the moment that Singe watched her, the man with the club got past his rapier long enough to swing a crushing blow at his sword arm. Singe twisted around and caught the blow on his left shoulder instead. His arm went numb and he staggered. The tattooed woman darted in again. Desperately, Singe turned his stagger into a low lunge.

The blade of his rapier sank into her thigh. She shrieked and fell back as he whipped the weapon free. Swaying to the side, he barely managed to avoid another punishing blow from the man’s club. Dandra yelped and he shot a fast glance toward her. One of her attackers had managed to grab the butt of her spear. The kalashtar spun and kicked out with a sandaled foot but the move left her open. The second man dove in-

— and was tackled by a massive, growling form that seemed to explode out of the night. Singe caught only a glimpse of flashing teeth and thick muscles, but the man was swept off his feet and slammed back into the shadows. Over the noise of combat, he heard the wet crunch of a blade penetrating flesh and bone.

The sudden, ferocious attack gave him and Dandra the moment’s chance that they needed. As the man with the club turned to meet this half-glimpsed new threat, Singe thrust his rapier under his momentarily upraised arm. Blood burst from his mouth in a sudden spray and the club tumbled to the ground as he fell. Dandra yielded to the pull of the man who grasped her spear; a hard push shoved him off balance. As he fought to regain his balance, she wrenched her weapon from his hand, reversed it, and, with a grim expression, jabbed the glittering head deep into his chest.

Her last ally dead, the tattooed woman flung herself away, limping for the safety of the forest.

A short, heavy sword-already slick with blood-whirled around and chopped deep into her torso. She slumped forward, her body seeming to fold over the blade.

Geth stepped back into the circle of Singe’s light, sliding his weapon free and allowing the woman’s corpse to collapse onto the ground. He raised his eyes and met the wizard’s gaze with a simple, brutal directness.

Abruptly, Singe felt as though he had fallen through time nine years into the past. The backcountry hunter he had confronted on the common of Bull Hollow had barely seemed like the warrior he remembered. That warrior stood before him now. Geth still wore the clothes he had before, but in his left hand, he held his sword, a product of the smoke-belching war forges of Karrnath.

His right hand and arm were covered in an armor sleeve of blackened, magewrought steel. Flat spikes protruded from the knuckles of the great gauntlet and three low, hooked blades swept forward from the back. More spikes lined the ridge of his forearm. Interlocking strips of metal bulged around his upper arm, running all the way up to the plates of the wide, heavy shoulder guard.

Slowly, Singe lifted his rapier once more and braced himself for the shifter’s attack.

“Stop.”

From the direction that Geth had come, another man moved into the light. His only weapon was a spear with a cluster of dried leaves bound to its shaft and his only armor a jerkin of heavy, paint-daubed hide, but he carried himself with authority. A druid, guessed Singe-he had seen men and women with a similar look throughout the Eldeen Reaches. He had never, however, seen one with such a clear confidence and sense of purpose as this man. Under the weight of the nature-priest’s gaze, he let his rapier drop. The druid gave him a measured look as he paced closer.

“You must be Singe,” he said. “My name is Adolan.” He turned and glanced at Dandra. To Singe’s surprise, the kalashtar shrank back slightly and her feet settled to the ground. Adolan knelt to examine one of the fallen warriors. “Human,” he muttered. He looked back up at Dandra. “I have the feeling you know who these people are.”

Tension passed over Dandra’s face, as if she was struggling with her response. Then she drew a breath and met Adolan’s eyes. “They’re the hunters of a clan called Drumasaz,” she said. “In their language, it means ‘the Bonetree.’ They come from deep in the Shadow Marches.”

“The Shadow Marches?” the druid said sharply. His eyes narrowed. “What gods do they follow?” he demanded. “Do you know?”

“No gods,” Dandra whispered so quietly Singe could barely hear her. “They worship the dark powers of Khyber.”

Singe couldn’t hold back a nervous chuckle. “A cult of the Dragon Below? Are you serious?”

Adolan gave him unnerving stare. “The Shadow Marches breed many foul things-degenerate ideas and desperate beliefs among them.” He prodded one of the bodies with the toe of his boot and rose slowly. “What would a Marcher clan be doing-”

Singe felt a prickling across the back of his neck. His eyes darted up into the darkness overhead. Geth must have felt something, too, because he hissed, “In the trees, Ado!”

The druid glanced up, then folded his lower lip under his teeth and gave an ear-splitting whistle.

A hunting bird’s screech cut the night. Branches and leaves crashed above them as something struck from out of the sky-and something else sought to escape. Singe flinched instinctively. Wings cracked through the air, then the hunting bird screeched again.

A moment later, a big eagle with red-gold plumage settled onto the path. Clutched in its talons was a massive black heron. The eagle spread its wings and screeched once more, then waddled awkwardly back as Adolan approached and bent down. “Well done, Breek,” he said. “Singe, your light?”

Stunned, the wizard stepped closer and raised his shining rapier high. Over Adolan’s shoulder, he got a better look at the dead bird. Its long neck had been broken by the eagle’s attack, but it looked almost as if the heron had been on the verge of death already: it was thin and its black feathers seemed strangely oily. The eyes that stared blankly into the night were an eerily bright acid green.

Singe swallowed. “I didn’t know herons perched in trees,” he said awkwardly, trying to fill the silence.

“The tops of trees,” Geth said, “yes. The thick of a forest canopy? No. Ado?”

“It’s tainted. But not enough to have triggered the Bull Hole. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” The druid stood. “We-”

“We need to go,” said Dandra.

Singe, Adolan, and Geth swung around as one to stare at her. The woman’s hands were clenched tight around her spear. There was a terror on her face, Singe saw, that hadn’t been there when they were fighting the hunters.

“They’ll be coming.” She trembled. “They follow the birds.”

Singe darted forward and steadied her. He glanced at Geth and Adolan. “There was a bird watching me before we were attacked.”

“More hunters coming then?” asked Geth.

“Or worse,” said Adolan softly. “Either way, we shouldn’t stay here.” He looked to Geth. The shifter nodded and spun around to lope away along the path, his gaze swinging right to left and back. Scouting the way. Singe felt another twinge of familiarity. Nine years before, the shifter had done the same thing in service to the Frostbrand and House Deneith.

He turned back, however, to find Adolan staring at him. “Put your fight with Geth aside,” the druid said. “You’re in danger.” He looked at Dandra. “Are you going to attack me again?”

She shook her head urgently. Adolan nodded. “Then come with us, both of you. Quickly.” He made a clicking noise with his tongue and the eagle croaked in response, vaulting back into the air and flapping furiously to gain the sky. Adolan gestured with his spear, then turned and ran after Geth with long, confident strides. Dandra pulled out of Singe’s arms and raced off in his wake. Her first few paces were on the ground, then she was floating again, moving as quickly as Adolan-faster even. Abruptly, Singe was all but alone, left to stare at the retreating figures of the druid and the kalashtar and at the bodies lying along the path.

“Twelve moons-” he breathed in confusion.

His voice froze as a weird fluting call pierced the forest. It was unlike anything he had ever heard: shrill, maddening, and haunting all at once. There was another sound underneath it as well, a vague muttering chant. Singe’s teeth snapped together and he sprinted hard after Adolan, the light from his rapier bouncing and sweeping in the darkness.

The fluting call fell silent, but not the muttering chant. If anything, it seemed louder. Even another of the rolling bellows-louder than before and also closer-did nothing but drown it out for a moment. When the echoes of the bellow faded away, the chanting was closer still. Singe cursed under his breath. He glanced at Dandra, but the kalashtar’s eyes were fixed on the path ahead. “Adolan,” he gasped, “what’s happening? Where are we going?”

“We’re going to the Bull Hole,” Adolan said. Even he sounded winded. “We’ll be safe there.”

“What’s the Bull Hole? What’s making that chanting?”

There was light ahead. Moonlight. Singe caught a glimpse of Geth’s hulking form waiting for them. Abruptly, they shot out of the shadows of the forest and into a huge broad clearing. At its center was a jumble of stones.

He remembered seeing this clearing from the rim of the valley as he and Toller looked down on Bull Hollow. He remembered thinking the stones were the ruins of some building. He couldn’t, he realized, have been more wrong.

The stones looked like they predated the hamlet, like they predated any human presence in the Eldeen Reaches. Weathered smooth, they shone and shimmered under the light of the moons and the Ring of Siberys. Many leaned sharply and a good number had fallen entirely, but it was easy to see that they had once stood in a carefully arranged, tightly clustered circle. Yet another bellow rolled through the night and this time Singe felt it rumble in his guts. He could have sworn that even the ground trembled with the sound.

Geth fell in with them, matching his pace to Adolan’s. The shifter’s face was grim and every few moments he glanced back over his shoulder. They were a little more than halfway to the stones when he let out a growl and spat, “Here they come!”

Singe risked a glance back himself. Bursting silently from the edge of the forest and into the moonlit clearing were a dozen or more tall, lean Bonetree hunters. More frightening than the human figures, though, were the hunched shapes that ran along with them, scuttling out of the trees on squat, misshapen legs.

The creatures stood less than half the height of a human. It looked as if their heads and necks had been crushed down into their shoulders. Each pumped four bandy arms as it ran. It seemed as if every arm carried a weapon: Singe glimpsed viciously spiked bucklers, light spears, ugly maces, and crossbows. All of the creatures wore a strange crest on their malformed chests as well. The moonlight caught a weird design shaped like a mouth full of teeth.

Then one of the crests shifted, opened wide, and let out a wild yell. Two mouths, Singe realized. The creatures had two mouths to go with their four arms! They were the source of the muttering chant, as if their two mouths had been talking to each other in a horrible chorus as they stalked the darkened forest.

“Faster!” grunted Adolan. “Get to the stones!”

None of them needed his encouragement. Geth ran with the flowing stride of an animal, almost going down on four legs. Adolan opened up his pace. Dandra’s floating form skimmed over the ground like a low-flying bird. Singe simply moved his legs as hard and fast as he could. A new roar rose up from their pursuers, humans and creatures calling out together.

Twenty paces to the stones. Fifteen. Dandra vanished among the stones.

Something whizzed past Singe and sank into the ground ahead. He caught a glimpse of a crossbow bolt, its head buried in the soil, as he raced past. Ten paces. Geth was under cover, then Adolan. He was alone in the open! Three more thuds came in rapid succession all around him. Three more bolts sprouted out of the ground. The archers were finding their range. Five paces.

Singe leaped and rolled into the shelter of the stones just as a cascade of bolts fell out of the air like deadly hail.