The Grieving Tree

CHAPTER 3

Orshok needed no encouragement. He sprinted down the alley faster than Geth would have thought possible. Ashi, however, stood frozen for a moment, torn between flight and the desire to fight. Geth didn’t give her the chance to think about it-he just ran straight at her. The alley was too narrow for them to pass each other. “Go, Ashi!” he screamed as he charged at her. “Move!”

She spun around and ran. Geth put his head down and focused on moving his legs as fast as he could. With each pounding stride, he expected to hear the dragon’s deafening roar and to feel hot, acidic venom spatter against his back. Trapped in the alley, they were all three an easy target. He’d seen the dragon’s acid melt orcs and dolgrims alike on the battlefield at the Bonetree mound, flesh and bone dissolving into a hideous slop. Any time now, he thought to himself with mounting horror, any time now.

He heard Vennet shout for his crew, ordering them into pursuit. He heard a strange sharp whistle. He didn’t hear a dragon’s roar. He didn’t feel acid drench him.

He burst out of the end of the alley and onto a quiet laneway. Orshok grabbed his arm, whirling him to a stop. “Which way?” gasped the orc.

Geth twisted around, looking back down the alley. Vennet stood at the far end, his cutlass raised, waving to someone-probably his crew-back on the docks. Beyond him, Geth could see Dah’mir, still in human form, standing and glaring. The shifter gulped and leaped away. He looked both ways along the laneway, then thrust a hand in the direction that seemed to lead back to a busier part of the city. “This way!” he said. “Grandfather Rat, if we can get into a crowd before Vennet’s men are through the alley, we might lose them!”

“Men aren’t the only thing we need to worry about!” Ashi pointed upward.

Black herons were rising into the sky above.

“Rat!” Geth cursed again. Bonetree hunters had once used the birds to track Dandra from the air. With Dah’mir to command them, he didn’t doubt that they’d perform the same task for Vennet’s crew, guiding the sailors right to them. He clenched his teeth. “We still don’t want to be caught in the open! Come on!”

They’d almost made it out of the laneway and into the busier street at its end when shouts erupted behind them. Geth looked over his shoulder and saw a knot of sailors pouring out of the alley. “They’ve seen us!” he called to Ashi and Orshok-then they were all plunging into the crowd on the street.

For a panic-stricken moment, the shifter feared he had lost the druid and the hunter, only to find them right beside him. He struck out for the middle of the street, moving as quickly as he dared. Full out flight through the crowd would only draw attention to them, and getting through the milling throng quickly seemed unlikely at best. He looked behind them. The sailors were standing at the side of the street, looking around with a blank stare. Overhead, the herons spun in wide, lazy circles, as if still trying to pick out their targets. Geth drew a slow breath. Maybe they had a chance.

Vennet’s voice rang out above the noise of the street. “There! There they are!”

Geth spun back around. Vennet and fully half of his crew were ahead of them. The half-elf must have known a shortcut through the twisting alleys-and he and his crew didn’t need to worry about being stealthy. The sailors came hurtling through the crowd like stampeding cattle, ignoring the cries of the people they shoved aside.

The shifter twisted to look back the way they had come-and saw the other sailors closing, too, drawn by Vennet’s shouts.

A crooked sidestreet opened nearby. It was empty. “Down there!” he told Orshok and Ashi. He pushed them past the people who stood like confused cattle, staring at Vennet and his men, and down the street. He followed-but not before snatching a long bolt of colorful fabric away from a woman standing on the corner. Her shouts followed him around the first sharp bend in the street.

“Ashi!” he called. “Stop and help me! Orshok, run slow-you’re our bait!”

He saw the young orc swallow, but keep going. Ashi stopped and whirled around. Geth grabbed her and pulled her into the shelter of the bend. He thrust the free end of the bolt of fabric into her hands. “Hold tight to this.”

Shouts echoed along the street. The first group of Vennet’s men had come after them. Geth and Ashi pressed back. Geth drew a deep breath, reached inside himself-and shifted.

Instincts, reflexes, and animal features weren’t the only legacy to shifters from their lycanthropic ancestors. Although they couldn’t take the true beast forms of their ancestors, shifters could take on bestial aspects. Some could grow claws or fangs. Some could put on incredible speed or enhance their senses. Geth’s shifting ability wasn’t so flamboyant or deadly, but he had always thought it was even more useful.

As the shifting swept through him, his skin toughened. His hair bristled and seemed to grow thick. A sensation of invulnerability pounded in his veins.

When Vennet’s men came pounding around the bend in the alley, their eyes fixed on Orshok, Geth roared and leaped out behind them. Startled, the men froze for just an instant. That was long enough for Geth. He darted forward, jumping around the men, the bolt of fabric unraveling behind him in an unlikely banner. Ashi realized what he was doing and ran around the other way to meet him, drawing the noose of fabric tight. Vennet’s men found themselves abruptly clustered together, pinned by the colorful cloth before they could draw their blades. Geth and Ashi turned almost in unison and threw themselves against the trapped men, laying them down with a flurry of hard, fast punches and kicks.

One sailor managed to squirm free and pull out a knife as the fabric noose fell slack. He lunged at Geth. The shifter swatted his attack aside, but the knife still connected. The blade slashed his arm-and left no more than a score in his shifting-toughened skin. Geth growled and smashed his elbow across the sailor’s face. The knife might have done no lasting damage, but it still hurt.

The man dropped like a stone, the last to go down-and just in time. Vennet’s voice swept down the street. People were staring down from windows above. A short distance along the street, Orshok was waiting, hopping from one foot to the other, ready to run again. Geth let go of the fabric and grabbed Ashi. “Come on. Half a dozen down is only a start.”

Ashi’s eyes were bright as they sprinted after Orshok, whipping around another bend in the street. “It was too easy,” she hissed between her teeth. “They moved slow. Did you see their eyes?”

Geth scowled. “I wasn’t looking at their eyes!”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, though, he could see in his memory exactly what Ashi meant. The sailors’ reactions had been slow, almost as if they had been drinking. Their eyes had been focused, but also strangely distant-as if a part of each man’s mind had been under the control of someone else. Another growl escaped him. “Dah’mir’s influence!”

“Where do you think he is?” asked Orshok. “Word of Vvaraak, why hasn’t he come after us?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to take to the sky over a crowded city,” said Ashi.

Or, Geth thought, maybe he couldn’t. The dragon’s stiff movements, the haggard look of pain on his human face … maybe Dah’mir couldn’t fly. Tiger’s blood, he wondered, how badly did I injure him?

He kept the thought to himself. If Dah’mir was somewhere behind them, they couldn’t led their guard down. Vennet and his men were still following, their shouts echoing along the twists of the street-once they lost them, they could worry about Dah’mir. Geth glanced down each of the alleys that split off from the street, but without exception, they were all even narrower than the street itself-and now was not the time to risk blundering into a dead-end.

Assuming that the twisting street wasn’t itself a dead-end.

As they skidded around a final corner, though, the buildings that had hemmed them in fell away. The crooked street opened up, merging with other streets to make a plaza along the side of a broad canal. To their left and ahead, wide streets ran off through the city. To their right, a bridge leaped across the canal. The plaza was busy-ordinary people going about their day’s errands, merchants strolling and talking, porters plodding under massive loads of goods. A strange smell like a hundred crushed plants mingled together made Geth’s nose twitch.

“That’s the herb market!” Orshok panted. The orc was running heavily, out of breath. “It’s close-on the other side of the canal. Singe and Dandra will be there. They can help us!”

A chill rolled along Geth’s back. “No!” he said, slowing in the middle of the plaza. “We can’t lead Vennet to them. Dandra’s vulnerable to Dah’mir’s power.”

“What do we do then?” asked Ashi. She swung around to face him-and her eyes focused on something high and behind him. Her mouth opened to shout a warning, but Geth was already spinning-

— as five black herons with acid-green eyes came swooping out of the sky, practically on top of them. He flung up one arm to shield his face and flailed wildly with his other, trying to bat the birds away. He smelled a greasy, coppery stink as one of the birds struck. Pain raked along his arm. As the birds flapped back up into the air, he glanced at his arm. The heron’s sharp talons had drawn blood even through his tough hide!

He spun around. The birds were beating for altitude again, coming around. People across the plaza were shouting and turning to look. Ashi was helping Orshok to his feet. There were long slashes in the druid’s sleeves and bloody scratches on his forehead. Geth jumped to his side, teeth bared. “I’m really starting to hate those damn herons!”

There was anger in Orshok’s eyes. “Then let’s give them something to worry about besides us!” He thrust his hands-his hunda stick clenched in one, the fingers of the other spread wide-toward the sky and spat a prayer.

Nature stirred and answered his call. In the sky above the wheeling herons, the afternoon light seemed to fold and part. With a chorus of brittle shrieks, four eagles burst out of the air and hit the herons in a flurry of feathers and talons. One of the herons fell to the wooden plaza almost immediately, its neck broken. The others scattered, pursued by the eagles.

The display of magic drew even more attention to them, however-some of it distinctly unwelcome.

“Geth!” shouted Vennet. “Ashi, you treacherous bitch!

Geth turned to see the half-elf standing in the mouth of the crooked street they had just left, his dim-eyed crew spreading out around their captain. He recognized many of them, including a formerly friendly, steadfast sailor named Karth. If Karth had been turned to hunting them down, Geth knew, something had definitely taken control of Vennet’s men.

He also knew that they couldn’t just keep running. He crouched down, a snarl tearing itself from his throat and reached for his sword. Ashi was at his side, her hand on her weapon as well. The bystanders closest to them pulled back swiftly.

Then Orshok’s voice rippled through the air in another desperate prayer. The afternoon light vanished in the roiling cloud of thick mist that took shape all around them.

“Grandmother Wolf!” Geth’s curse was lost in the shouts of alarm from the people around. The shifter reached out and grabbed the dim shape that was Ashi and pulled her with him toward Orshok. The young orc loomed out of the mist like a ghost.

Geth grabbed him, too. “Move! This isn’t going to stop Vennet!”

“He can’t see us.”

“He can’t see us yet,” Geth told him. The fear of the crowd gave him a desperate idea. The body of the heron killed by Orshok’s eagles lay nearby. Pushing Ashi and Orshok toward the right side of the plaza, he scooped up the dead bird and hurled it off through the mist in the opposite direction. There was dull thud and a startled shout as it hit someone.

An instant later, the mist across that side of the plaza vanished in a howling rush of wind as Vennet, drawn by the sudden cry, unleashed the power of his dragonmark.

The blast of wind drew out more cries from the startled people in the plaza. Abruptly, the shifter, the hunter, and the druid weren’t the only ones running away from Vennet. Geth kept a tight grip on Orshok and Ashi, keeping them ahead of him as bodies packed around them in the remaining mist. “Stay low!” he said. “Keep moving with the crowd!”

He heard splashes nearby as people fell off the edge of the plaza in their haste to flee, but up ahead the shouting crowd actually seemed to be condensing. He guided the others that way, pushing his way through the noisy crush to take a place just in front of a wide-eyed porter jogging along with a tall basket strapped to his back. Two merchants squeezed him on the left, a ragged beggar on the right. The mist lightened as they approached the edge of the cloud, then thinned and vanished as they broke clear.

They were in the middle of the bridge over the canal, just part of a frightened throng fleeing magic and the threat of violence in the plaza.

Geth felt Orshok stiffen. “Geth, this is the way to the herb market!”

“I know,” said the shifter. “Brace yourselves and keep moving.” He glanced at the men around him, then leaned toward the closer of the two merchants. “Sorry for this,” he said.

The man barely had time to give him a curious look before Geth hooked a foot around his leg and swept it out from under him. The merchant flailed and went down, clutching at his companion and pulling him off balance as well. Geth kept moving even as the porter staggered to avoid the fallen men, knocking another person to the ground and leaving his tall load swaying. The porter tried to right himself-and failed. His basket tipped and fat green melons flew out, bouncing on the bridge and tripping still more people. Those who could see what had happened tried to slow down and dodge around the fallen people, but the press of the crowd didn’t let up. New shouts of confusion and fear rang out.

Geth caught Ashi and Orshok and pushed them on through the milling mob and off the bridge, then, as the street opened into the edge of a vast market, out of the crowd and into the shadow of a merchant’s stall. Safe for a moment, he took a deep breath. “Did it work?” he gasped.

Ashi peered cautiously back the way they had come. “Rond betch, what a mess! Vennet’s not going to get through that fast!”

“Where is he?” asked Geth.

“The mist is lifting.” She paused, then added, “He’s still on the plaza, looking like he’s trying to decide what to do.”

“Herons?”

Ashi’s eyes turned to the sky. “None close.”

Geth sagged back. He released his hold on the shifting and its rush of invincibility bled out of him. The sting of the scratches inflicted by the heron’s talons faded, eased by the fading power. Geth let his breath out in a grateful hiss and looked at Ashi and Orshok. The hunter was still tense, her hand hovering close to her sword. The druid was drenched in sweat and trembling, his fingers gripping his hunda stick. Geth nodded to both of them. “Easy,” he said. “I think we’re safe-”

“Geth! Twelve bloody moons, what have you done?”

Geth leaped up like a rabbit, lunging for Singe where the wizard stood in the street and dragging him under cover with a hand over his mouth. Dandra and Natrac were with him-Ashi swept both of them into hiding as well.

Geth eased his hand away from Singe’s face. “What are you doing here?”

Singe’s eyes went from wide to narrow. “We were coming to see what all the commotion was. Did you have something to do with this? What’s going on?”

“Vennet and Dah’mir are in Zarash’ak,” Geth told him with a growl.

Dandra tensed. “What? How?”

“Dah’mir’s in human form-he was with Vennet at the docks. We just got away.” Geth jerked his head toward the bridge. “Vennet’s still in the plaza over there. He might still figure out where we’ve gone. Dah’mir’s herons are hunting for us from the sky. We need to find some place to hide-the sooner the better.”

“Lords of the Host,” cursed Natrac. He stepped back out into the street, looked quickly in the direction of the bridge, then gestured for the others to follow him. “This way. Quickly!”

The half-orc ducked across the street and, brushing aside a hanging curtain, squeezed between two stalls. Geth sent Orshok and Ashi after him, then Dandra and Singe. Dandra’s face was pale with fear, her jaw set with determination. Singe’s hand hovered near his sword. They crossed quickly, heads down, Singe walking to shield Dandra’s red-brown skin and distinctive clothes from anyone who might be watching. Once they had disappeared behind the curtain, Geth stepped cautiously into the street and glanced back at the bridge.

Ashi’s description of the aftermath of their passage as a mess was accurate. People were still milling about on the bridge. A few were down. More people were gathering to see what had happened. Geth felt a twinge of guilt and hoped that his desperate play hadn’t left anyone badly injured.

He couldn’t, however see Vennet or any of his crew, and that was all he could have asked for. He eased himself through the knots of people who had stopped to gossip, then, as soon as he was under the cover of the stalls on the other side of the street, dove through the curtain and after the others.

The stalls had been set up across the mouth of a narrow passage-probably deliberately. One of the stallkeepers was vanishing back into his tiny place of business with clinking coins in his hand. A moment later, the curtain ruffled as crates were shoved across its street side. Anyone passing would be unlikely to guess at the passage beyond.

“How did you know this was here?” Geth asked Natrac.

“It’s a pickpocket’s bolthole,” said the half-orc. “Spend time in Zarash’ak’s markets and you start to recognize them-and to keep a hand on your purse. Pickpockets like to stick close to them.”

Geth’s hand twitched toward his belt, but Natrac shook his head. “Any pickpockets will have gone straight to the crowd on the bridge.”

He led them a little further down the passage. Geth couldn’t have called it an alley-it was just barely big enough to squeeze down sideways. After a short distance, however, it opened up into a tiny, stifling hot courtyard no larger than a small room and with walls rising high enough around them that it felt like being at the bottom of the hole. Laundry had been hung on lines overhead, obscuring any view of-or from-the sky. Two other passages no wider than the first let out from the courtyard in different directions. Natrac lowered himself onto a crude bench someone had knocked together. “We should be safe here for now.”

Singe turned to Geth, Ashi, and Orshok. “What happened?”

Geth related everything they had seen and heard on the docks and since. The story left Dandra looking troubled. “Dah’mir and Vennet?” she asked. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Vennet’s a toad,” said Singe, biting at his words. “You should have seen him with Dah’mir after he helped capture us. He was on his knees faster than a Thrane before an altar. After the battle at the mound, maybe Dah’mir thought he needed a new ally.”

“How could he have gotten to Zarash’ak before us?”

“Powerful magic, probably,” Singe answered with a shrug. “We saw him vanish, didn’t we? He’s a dragon. He could have done almost anything.”

“Do you think Vennet knows that?” asked Orshok.

The question left all of them silent for a moment before Geth growled an answer. “Do you think he would care?”

“Vennet’s greedy and power-mad, but I don’t think he’s stupid.” Singe sat down on the bench beside Natrac. “Why do you think they’d be going back up river?”

“They’re going back to the Bonetree mound,” Ashi said grimly. “Dah’mir told Vennet two weeks-the journey to Bonetree territory takes two weeks.”

“Dah’mir could fly there faster in his dragon form, couldn’t he?”

Geth bared his teeth. “I think he’s still injured.” He traced the stain and mended tear that had marked Dah’mir’s robes on his own chest. “It would explain why he didn’t chase us himself-and why he’d be traveling with Vennet. Maybe Vennet is more than just a convenient ally.”

Ashi’s eyes opened wide, flashing in the gloom, and she stretched her hands. “If Dah’mir’s weak, we should attack! We have the element of surprise!”

Singe looked up sharply. “He’s still a dragon, Ashi! We’re guessing that he may not be able to fly, but that doesn’t make him helpless. He’s dominating Vennet’s entire crew and he still has magic.” The wizard’s lips pressed together into a thin line. “I’d want to know more about just how weak he was before I took him on.”

Dandra paced back and forth across the courtyard, her fine-featured face troubled. After a moment, she said, “Dah’mir will have guessed that we’re all here together. I don’t think we can stay in Zarash’ak.”

“You think he would delay his journey up river to hunt for us?” asked Orshok.

“What’s waiting for him at the Bonetree mound? Nothing.” Dandra turned, stopping her pacing for a moment. “If he leaves Zarash’ak, he risks losing us.”

Geth squeezed his fists together, but nodded. “I wouldn’t walk away from us,” he said. “So where do we go? Have you found out anything about the Spires of the Forge?”

Dandra, Singe, and Natrac exchanged a glance, then Dandra shook her head. “House Tharashk told us nothing. We’ve tried a bounty hunter and two dragonshard prospectors. None of them have heard of the Spires of the Forge-the bounty hunter claimed they didn’t exist.”

“They exist,” said Ashi firmly.

“That doesn’t do us any good if we can’t find them,” said Singe. He tapped his fingertips together. “There’s still Natrac’s historian, but I don’t think going out to dinner is such a great idea. Natrac, if we can make it back to your house unseen, do you think your historian could come to us?”

Natrac’s face tightened. “Going back to my house might not be a good idea. Vennet knows where I live. I invited him to dinner once.”

Geth growled. “You what?”

“We were on good terms at the time,” the half-orc snapped. “I didn’t know he was going to end up cutting off my hand!”

“He doesn’t know you’re still with us,” Ashi pointed out.

“No, but if Dah’mir has told him that a half-orc with one hand fought with Geth and Singe at the Bonetree mound, he’ll probably put it together.”

“Does Vennet know your historian?” Dandra asked.

They all looked at her. She spread her hands. “If Vennet doesn’t know your historian, we’d be safe there.”

Natrac looked doubtful. “I don’t want to expose her to danger.”

Her. A woman. It was the first time the half-orc had given away any information at all about his historian. In another situation, Geth might have teased him or tried to drag out more, but this was no time for jokes. “If we can get there without being spotted, she won’t be in any danger,” he said. “Besides, we need her information, don’t we? The sooner we get it, the sooner we can get out of Zarash’ak.”

“The hard part will be going anywhere without being seen,” said Ashi. “We might be able to avoid Vennet, but the herons can see anything in the streets.”

Natrac exhaled slowly. “I know a way,” he said. “We should wait here a while, give Vennet a chance to move on, then we’ll go.” He looked up, his eyes dark. “But if anyone gets hurt …”

“No one will get hurt, Natrac,” Geth said. He thumped his fist against his chest. “I promise. We’ll be like ghosts. No one will even know we’re there.”

Dah’mir was waiting by the river boat, sitting on a water cask as if it were a throne, when Vennet finally returned to the docks with his crew. Dah’mir’s green eyes flashed. “You didn’t catch them,” he said.

“No,” Vennet told him. “They got away.” He hesitated, then added. “Ashi was with Geth, lord.”

“I saw her,” said Dah’mir. “It doesn’t please me.”

Vennet’s crew moved around them, silently loading the last of the supplies into the river boat, resuming the tasks they had abandoned to take up the chase. The strength of Dah’mir’s control over them was, Vennet had to admit, astounding. Even during the chase, not one of the men had roused. It would take only one of the men escaping and passing on word of what had taken place on Lightning on Water for House Lyrandar to begin an investigation. There would be rumors enough soon-his passengers and cargo should have been delivered to Trolanport days ago.

“Be at ease, captain,” said Dah’mir. The green-eyed man must have guessed what was in his head-Vennet had wondered before at his uncanny knowledge, though Dah’mir insisted there was nothing magical about it, only practice in reading faces. “When I have regained my strength, the Dragon Below will see to all things. You will have the power and wealth you desire and your secret will be safe.”

Vennet pressed his lips together. “I’m risking everything for you, lord.”

“And your risk will be rewarded, captain. You have my word.”

The priest’s promise soothed the worshipper of Khyber within him. The first time he’d heard of Dah’mir-through Singe, then through Ashi-he’d seen the potential in allying himself with the priest. Betraying Singe, Geth, and Dandra had been little enough and he had profited from it. Dah’mir had rewarded him with two large and valuable dragonshards, a blue-black Khyber shard and a golden Siberys shard, now hidden in a strongbox beneath the floor of his cabin. The shards had been, Dah’mir claimed, a beacon to him after he had been wounded in the battle at the Bonetree mound. The priest had used powerful magic to fling himself and his birds through a plane of shadow, traveling hundred of miles from the battlefield to Lightning on Water in only hours.

But Vennet had been a scion of House Lyrandar long before he’d joined the cult of the Dragon Below. As awed and honored as Vennet had been to wake and find Dah’mir in his cabin and in need of his aid, the training of Lyrandar had left him skeptical. The priest wasn’t telling him everything. There was something about the battle at the Bonetree mound that he had left out. Vennet believed his tale of the orc raiders and the Gatekeepers, of Ashi’s betrayal, of Medala’s destruction at Dandra’s hand, of the dolgaunt Hruucan’s fiery death at Singe’s-of Dah’mir’s own injury by the strange ancient sword wielded by Geth. The wound that scarred the priest’s chest still showed no sign of healing even a week later.

That Dah’mir had panicked at his wounding and fled to distant safety where his attackers couldn’t follow-Vennet could believe that, too. He’d watched Dah’mir’s frustration as the strength drained out of him. The priest tried to hide it, but Vennet knew that every command he issued to the crew made him weaker. He’d seen him attempt magic and watched his spells falter. The key to regaining his strength lay in returning to the Bonetree mound, the heart of his power. That was what he needed Vennet for.

There was something else though, Vennet knew. Suspicion crept in at the back of his mind, lifting the hairs on the back of his neck. He prayed to Khyber that he’d made the right decision in siding with the priest.

There was one thing about Dah’mir that he had worked out for himself, however. “Lord,” he pointed out, “if Geth is in Zarash’ak, Dandra probably is, too.”

Dah’mir’s mouth twisted in anger, the expression darkening his face like a cloud across the sun. He cut Vennet off with a snap. “I had guessed that myself, captain! Zarash’ak has too many hiding places, though. We can spare no more time. I must return to the Bonetree mound. That is my only concern. I want to leave as soon as the boat is ready.”

For the first time, Vennet heard an edge of desperation in the priest’s voice. He bent his head, holding back a sly, self-satisfied smile. “I know, lord. I anticipated it. But just because we can’t stay to look for her and her companions doesn’t mean that someone else can’t search them out and hold them until we return. I took the initiative of contacting someone and offering him the job.” Vennet gestured for the heavily-muscled man who had been standing back in the shadows to join them. “I know his reputation. He’s said to be one of the best bounty hunters available.”

“I am the best,” the man growled as he came forward. He met Dah’mir’s eyes boldly. “I’ll get you your people.”

“Lord,” said Vennet, “meet Chain d’Tharashk.”