The Binding Stone (The Dragon Below, Book 1) (20 page)

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Authors: Don Bassingthwaite

BOOK: The Binding Stone (The Dragon Below, Book 1)
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Some time on the third day, it seemed as if his body made a bargain with the sea. The shifter found that he was actually hungry and cautious sampling showed that a little food would stay settled in his stomach. The sea wind felt good on his face and in his hair and there was thrill to the rise and fall of the ship as it surged over the waves. The crew had grown used to his presence on deck; they seemed genuinely pleased when they discovered that he had started to enjoy the journey.
The only thing he couldn't get used to was the sensation of being below deck while the ship was moving. He'd never been afraid of tight spaces before, but onboard
Lightning on Water
, it was disquieting. Fortunately, the weather was warm in spite of the wind. If he'd survived two nights on deck while puking his guts over the side of the ship, he told himself, he could survive a couple more.
As the sun set over water and darkness fell, he found himself alone in the bow of the ship. The crew had gone to their hammocks and blankets. The other passengers, Singe and Dandra among them, had made a habit of remaining in the captain's cabin after dinner. It seemed that sharing Vennet's table wasn't exactly the exclusive invitation Singe might have thought it was. Geth stared out at the broad horizon--at the moons and stars above and the shining Ring of Siberys in the south--and finally allowed himself to mourn Adolan. The druid's loss was an empty ache inside him. Geth reached up and brushed his fingers over the collar of black stones, feeling the deep grooves of the ancient symbols that had been carved into them.
"Do you mind if I join you?"
Vennet's voice came from right behind him, so close that it made the shifter jump. He twisted around, his teeth bared out of
instinct. Vennet raised a hand. "Easy," he said. "Sorry to startle you. If you'd prefer to be left alone ..."
Geth hesitated, then relaxed. He'd been alone with his thoughts long enough, and he'd seen little of Vennet through the voyage. By day the captain manned the wheel, controlling both the ship and the elemental. A junior officer, also a bearer of the Mark of Storm that gave House Lyrandar its distinctive powers, took over by night. Geth patted the rail beside himself. "Stay," he said. "Plenty of room."
"I'd thank you for such a gracious invitation, but she
is
my ship." Vennet leaned against the rail, his back to the sea. In one hand he held a bottle. He offered it to Geth.
The shifter accepted it and took a cautious swig. The liquor inside was strong and harsh. He passed the bottle back to Vennet. "I would have expected something a little better of the captain," he wheezed.
"It's crew rations," the half-elf admitted. "But it's how you can tell a working windwright from a pampered drizzle-whistler in House Lyrandar." He raised the bottle to the starry sky. "We sailors develop a fondness for the rot." Vennet took a drink, then ran his gaze over Geth. "You're looking better than you have been."
Geth grunted. "It would be hard not to."
Vennet chuckled and put the bottle back in Geth's hand. "We missed you at the table tonight. I thought maybe you'd come now that you'd found your sea legs."
The shifter made a sour expression as he took another pull at the bottle. "I like it better on deck," he said. "Why? Have I missed anything?"
"Not much," confessed Vennet with a shrug. "The run from Yrlag to Zarash'ak is generally pretty much the same every time, although this voyage isn't going particularly well for Natrac. Some of his 'clients' have been getting out of hand, and he's finally realized that Singe works for House Deneith." He grinned. "He's been groveling like a goblin all night. Singe is drinking it up."
"I'm sure he is," Geth growled.
He drank again, then returned the bottle. Vennet looked at him over its end as he drank as well. When he lowered the bottle, he
commented, "There's no love lost between you two, is there?" "We served together," Geth said curtly.
"Ah." Vennet turned around to look out across the sea. "Where?"
The way he asked the question made Geth glance at him with new respect. When conversations turned to the Last War, he'd found over the years, people generally asked about his experiences in one of two ways. If they'd managed to stay out of the fighting, their questions tended to be curious and polite.
If they'd seen fighting themselves, on the other hand, their questions were blunt, tempered less by curiosity and more by a need to share their own experiences. While he'd avoided discussing the War through his years in Bull Hollow, Geth found himself opening up to Vennet. "All over," he said. "That's how it was with a Blademarks company."
"Was?" Vennet raised an eyebrow.
"Singe stayed in the Blademarks. I left."
Geth didn't offer anything more and Vennet didn't ask. "I can understand moving around," the captain said. He looked back at the water again. "I earned my commission doing transport work along the coast of the Bitter Sea, from Aundair across the Karrnathi coast to the Lhazaar Principalities. Sometimes a run down Scions Sound to Cyre or Thrane. That was a touchy trip."
The shifter gave him a smile. "I manned a ballista on the Cyran side of the Brey River for five months, shooting at any ship trying to make that run."
"Did you ever hit anything?"
"Did you ever get hit?"
Vennet laughed and they swapped the bottle again. "Where else?" he asked.
Geth dug into his memories, trying to remember the best of his time with the Frostbrand. "All over northern Cyre. Up into Karrnath. A little bit on the Talenta Plains. Wherever our commander drew a contract." He looked at Vennet. "Transport work sounds more peaceful."
The captain shook his head. "I saw trouble enough. It's hard to catch a Lyrandar ship if the captain doesn't want to be caught,
but there are always pirates and hostile ships willing to give it a try. Lyrandar doesn't float warships, though. We leave the hard fighting to those on land--and they're welcome to it." Vennet rubbed his thumbs across the bottle. "There was one assignment. Transport accompanying an Aundairian raid on a Karrnathi logging town. After the Eldeen Reaches broke away, Aundair came up short on quality timber for shipbuilding, but Karrnath's forests were still thick." His voice dropped. "The town should have held out against the raid, but somehow the Aundairian soldiers broke through. I didn't get any further from my ship than the docks, but it was like they turned into monsters when they got into that town. What they did ..."
Geth's mouth went dry. A queasy nausea returned to his stomach. "You're talking about Narath."
Vennet looked at him with haunted eyes. "You've heard of it." He gave a bitter chuckle. "Of course you have. Who hasn't?"
"Aye," said Geth. He drew a rough breath. "I wouldn't mention that story to Singe."
"Because it was Aundairians who did it?" Vennet grimaced. "I know how he feels. Believe me, I don't talk about it often either. For a long time, it was like a stain on my soul." He took another long drink from the bottle, then offered it to Geth again.
This time the shifter shook his head. Vennet nodded and shoved a cork back into the bottle's neck. "Enough for tonight," he agreed. He clapped a hand across Geth's shoulder. "Maybe when we reach Zarash'ak, though? There's a tavern I know--"
The sound of running feet on the deck saved Geth from having to decline the half-elf's offer. Both men turned at the same time as one of Vennet's crew slid to a stop in front of them. "Captain! Trouble in the aft hold!"
Vennet's eyes flashed angrily. "Natrac's gang again?" The crewman nodded and Vennet cursed, then looked to Geth. "I wouldn't normally ask a passenger to step into a fight, but some of Natrac's clients are brutes. A veteran of the Blademarks would be a good person to have at my back."
The prospect of a good fight stirred Geth's spirit. "I'm with you," he said.
"Good man." Vennet stuffed the bottle into a pocket and strode toward the stern of the ship, sparing a hard glare for the crewman. "Natrac's in my cabin. Tell him to get his backside aft!"
The crewman saluted and dashed off.
Lightning on Water
's crew were gathered around the top of the ladder-like steps leading down to the aft hold--they leaped back at Vennet's approach. The sounds of a roaring brawl thundered up from below. One of the crew called out to Vennet. "They've been arguing for a while, captain, but the fighting only just broke out."
The sudden splintering of wood punctuated her report. "Kol Korran's wager, if they damage my ship, I'll take the price out of Natrac's gray hide!" spat Vennet. He pointed at two burly sailors who stood by with thick wooden pins. "You and you. After us."
He thundered down the steps into the hold with sure-footed ease. Geth sprang after him, ready for anything.
At least he thought he was ready for anything. At the bottom of the stairs, he froze and bared his teeth. A snarl tore itself out of his throat.
The dim, magical light that lit the hold shone on a dozen bodies, most struggling, a few stretched out senseless on the floor. In the center of the chaos--fighting in a whirlwind of fists, feet, knees, and elbows--was Ashi!
C
HAPTER
8
D
andra bit her lip to hold back her laughter as Natrac spun out the punchline of a long and embarrassingly self-deprecating anecdote. He probably wouldn't have noticed if she had smiled, though. All of his attention was on Singe. The wizard sat near the head of the captain's table, to the right of Vennet's empty chair. His face was a stern mask of disapproval. He had to be working even harder than her, Dandra knew, to keep a straight face against Natrac's frantic attempts to ingratiate himself.
In truth, Singe had told her their first night on
Lighting on Water
, Natrac had been right all along. House Deneith had no interest in such a small, isolated operation as Natrac's. Still, he hadn't been able to resist winding up the blustering half-orc. The ship's other passengers had picked up on the joke as well. Even thin, hunched Pandon kept his face buried in a goblet to hide his grin as Natrac's anecdote lurched to an end. The cabin was silent. Dandra was certain she saw a drop of sweat run down the half-orc's face as he waited for a reaction from Singe.
In the back of her mind, Tetkashtai gave a silent sniff of disapproval.
Childish
. Dandra ignored her. Singe straightened and she could see a grave and measured response growing in his eyes.
It never reached his lips. The door of the cabin swung open and a panting crewman burst through to point at Natrac. "Captain says get yourself a ft!"
Natrac's gray skin grew even paler and for a moment he seemed frozen between responding to the captain and toadying to Singe. The urgency in the crewman's face was obvious, though.
"Go!" Singe shouted at Natrac. "Go!"
The half-orc leaped from his seat and raced out of the cabin. Vennet's crewman went with him. The silence around the captain's table was real.
Dandra stood up. "We should see what it is."
Singe nodded and rose as well.
They reached the hatch of the aft hold hard on Natrac's heels. Dandra could hear the sounds of fighting below. A brawl had broken out. The crew of
Lightning on Water
were clustered around the hatch. Vennet, Geth, and two big crewmen were disappearing down into the hold.
Only a heartbeat later, a terrible snarl ripped up from below.
"Geth!" Dandra exclaimed.
"Twelve moons," cursed Singe. "That can't be good!"
He pushed through the clustered crew, shoved past Natrac, and darted down the steps into the hold. Dandra followed close behind him. Down below, the two big crewmen were laying into Natrac's brawling clients. Vennet had waded into the fight as well, pulling the combatants apart with a ferocious ease that belied his slight frame, cursing blasphemously the whole time.
Geth, however, was bounding straight to the heart of the free-for-all. The tall woman who fought there whirled at his approach. Anger washed over a face flushed from combat and Ashi gave the screaming battle cry of the Bonetree hunters.
Light of il-Yannah!
wailed Tetkashtai.
Where did she come from?
Dandra watched Geth shift as he charged--his hair bristling and growing thicker, his body becoming subtly tougher, even the features of his face turning coarser and more beastlike. As he closed with Ashi, the hunter snapped a leg around in a fast kick that smashed into his side. Geth shrugged it off.

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