The Killing Song: The Dragon Below Book III (30 page)

All he had to do was get past the two hobgoblins standing guard over the doors without raising an alarm. He could probably take them but not without a fight. He needed to use his brain instead of his blade. Natrac drew a breath and marched along Two Boot Way, past the alley, and straight up to the guards. He made no effort to disguise his approach, and the guards looked up from their cards to watch him with curious indifference.

He stopped just short of them. “Biish sent me,” he said. “I’m taking over for you. He needs you on the raid.”

That got their attention, but they were good hobgoblins and
knew their duty. Both studied him with suspicion, reminding Natrac of the goblin pup, before one grunted, “I don’t know you. You’re not one of Biish’s.”

“I used to be,” Natrac told him. “Before your time. Biish called me up. I can watch things here, but he needs younger, stronger men for the raid.”

The other guard laughed. “He’s come to his senses. This place and Lord Storm don’t need more than an old, one-handed orc to guard them!”

He started to gather up the cards, but the first hobgoblin continued to study Natrac until his comrade gave him a hard poke. “You
want
to stay here when we could be raiding?”

The first hobgoblin bared his teeth at him, then turned his head and spat on the ground at Natrac’s feet.
“Ban,”
he said, rising. “But I’m checking this with Biish. If you’re lying …”

“You can come back and gut me,” said Natrac. “It’s a deal. I’ll be waiting for you.” He seated himself by the guards’ small fire and reached for one of the rats they had roasting.

The belligerent guard snatched them away from him. “Get your own.” Natrac shrugged and sat back. Both guards went trotting off along Two Boot Way.

As soon as they were well on their way, Natrac heaved himself back to his feet, opened the gates, and slipped into the halls of the arena. He paused for a moment to take stock of the arena’s condition. Dark. Damp. Unused. Silent when it should have been filled with the roar of a crowd. He touched his hand to the nearest wall. “It was a different time for both of us, old girl,” he whispered.

There was a stink in the air that went far beyond the mould of abandonment, however. Natrac hesitated for a moment, then turned left and headed around the outer ring corridor until he reached a plain door with a simple sign that read Management only. He’d left the door locked the last time he’d used it, but someone had bashed it in a long time ago. He squeezed through the gap, trying not to disturb the rusty hinges, and climbed quickly up the stairs beyond. He was almost at the top when a shout, echoing through the open space of the arena, rolled down from above.

“Master! I bring your enemies to you!”

It was Vennet—and almost instantly, Dah’mir replied, “Actually, Vennet, I believe the ones that matter brought themselves.”

Natrac dropped to his knees and scuttled up the last few stairs on his hand and knees, hobbling like a three-legged dog into what had once been the arena manager’s box. How many fights and spectacles had he watched from the box in his younger days? Hundreds at least. As he peered cautiously over the rail of the box, though, the scene on the sands below left him colder and more frightened than any other he could recall.

Singe and Dandra in the ring, surrounded by five rotting bodies. Vennet standing on the rail of the private box while Biish fought Ashi just beside him. Dah’mir in his heron form, settling down to perch on the arena wall. “You were right, Dandra,” he said. “I wouldn’t just leave the binding stones out in the open.”

For an instant, the scene seemed frozen, Dandra and Singe gripped by what must have been the same horror that Natrac felt, Vennet breathing hard in exalted triumph, Biish staring in surprise at the talking heron that the half-elf addressed as “Master.” Only Ashi seemed to hold her wits. The hunter seized the moment of Biish’s distraction to spin away from him and leap over the edge of the private box into the tiers of public seats below. The old wood of the benches cracked and splintered under her feet, but she moved as lightly as a halfling, bounding from bench to bench in an effort to join the others.

The frozen scene shattered with her movement. In a swift action, Singe snatched up a metal box from a work table sitting on the sands. “Try anything, Dah’mir,” he shouted, “and I’ll
smash
your bloody stones!”

Dah’mir merely ruffled his feathers and said like a scolding father, “Put that down.”

The power of his presence wasn’t so great in heron form as it was in dragon form, but it was still strong enough that even Natrac felt the edge of the command. Dah’mir’s full attention was focused on Singe, however, and Natrac saw only the briefest hint of struggle flash across the wizard’s face before his features relaxed and he lowered the box.

But then Dandra was beside him, her dark eyes clear and
determined, and Natrac realized Ashi must have used her dragonmark to protect her. He was too far away to hear the droning chorus as Dandra drew on her power of psionic fire, but abruptly a brilliant white flame blazed in her cupped hand. “That trick isn’t going to work on me,” she said. “Let us go, or I melt these abominations!”

Dah’mir stiffened in the face of a real threat, but neither his heron’s face nor his voice betrayed any emotion. “If I let you go, you’ll just destroy them anyway.”

“Maybe you should have stayed closer to them, then,” Dandra said between clenched teeth. She jerked her head at Singe. “Release him.”

Farther along the arena, Ashi dropped over the wall onto the sand, sword at the ready, and walked warily toward the others. Hope rose in Natrac. Was it possible that they could actually get away from Dah’mir with the binding stones? One of the gates onto the arena floor stood open. He was fairly certain that Dandra would probably lead Singe and Ashi out that way, but those gates led into the fighters’ tunnels beneath the arena. They’d need a guide if they were going to find their way out of the arena quickly or they’d risk being trapped.

The manager’s box, however, had two stairs: one to the outer corridor of the arena at ground level, the other leading down into the fighters’ tunnels. That easy double access was precisely one of the reasons he’d made his way to the box. He could be down in the tunnels to intercept Dandra and the others in only moments. No one knew his arena as well as he did! He eased away from the rail, climbed to his feet, and started to turn for the second set of stairs—then stopped dead as a rasping voice cried,
“No!”

On the arena floor, the skinniest and least decayed of the five corpses sat up suddenly and Natrac realized with shock that he wasn’t looking at a body, but a living man on the very verge of death. Everyone else in the arena—even Dah’mir—seemed stunned. The emaciated man opened his mouth and another rasping cry emerged.
“Dah’mir will succeed in Sharn!”

His arm snapped up and pointed at Dandra. Silver-white light flared and seemed to coalesce around her in a swirling vortex. The air shivered and twisted. Dandra screamed as her
body shivered and twisted along with it, then the vortex cracked and vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.

But not before there was a second crack, and Dandra was flung out of thin air halfway across the arena to stagger into Ashi’s path. The emaciated man collapsed again like rag doll with its stuffing pulled out. Dandra’s scream seemed to pierce Dah’mir’s power over Singe. The wizard shook his head and whirled around to stare at her. “Dandra!” he cried, and leaped for her. The box he had held tumbled to the ground. There was a yelp of distress from Vennet—but not from Dah’mir. The heron took to the air with beating wings and flew straight for the open gate, form swelling in mid-air.

Feathers became scales. Hind legs grew and forelegs emerged. A beak became a muzzle filled with sharp teeth. A soft crest became a horny frill. Dah’mir had taken to the air as a heron, but he landed as a dragon. He slammed his mighty body against the open gate, and the stonework collapsed with a dull rumble, cutting off escape from the arena.

Or at least
that
means of escape. Natrac clenched his jaw, threw himself at the stairs to the tunnels, and prayed that he still knew his arena as well as he thought he did.

“If I let you go, you’ll just destroy them anyway.”

Dandra glared at him and clenched her teeth, the chorus of whitefire throbbing in the air. Dah’mir was right. She’d rather have turned her power against the binding stones instead of using them as bargaining chips. If they could get away from Dah’mir, maybe she would—but they had to get away first. How stupid had she been to assume the arena was deserted! They should have left while they had a chance.

She thrust back her fear and lifted her chin. “Maybe you should have stayed closer to them, then,” she said. They still had a chance, thanks to Singe’s quick thinking. There was an open gate nearby. She didn’t dare turn around to check Ashi’s escape from Vennet, but her crashing progress through the benches was getting closer. They wouldn’t get far with Singe still enthralled by Dah’mir’s command. She nodded at the wizard. “Release him.”

The heron’s eyes narrowed as if Dah’mir were weighing his options. Dandra drew breath through her teeth. She couldn’t allow him time to think. She met Dah’mir’s eyes boldly as a thought sent the white flame burning in her palm blazing high.

“No!”
rasped a new voice.

She turned as the kalashtar who wore the final version of Dah’mir’s vile bracers, sat up, flies swarming around him. Dandra’s heart leaped into her throat, and a horrid thought forced its way into her mind: the kalashtar’s spirit had found strength in madness. Just as Medala had, he had fought his way back to control of his body, murdering the piece of himself that had been his psicrystal in the process. Dah’mir had succeeded in creating another servant for the Master of Silence.

Then the kalashtar spoke again, and she knew she was wrong. Dah’mir hadn’t created another servant. Someone else had taken residence in the kalashtar’s mindless body. More flies burst from the man’s mouth as he cried out,
“Dah’mir will succeed in Sharn!”

She knew the words. She knew the madness. It was Virikhad.

Even as she thought the name, though, the man’s arm came up and pointed at her. Silver-white light flared bright in her vision. It felt as though she were being torn apart, her body being squeezed through the fabric of space like mortar between bricks. It was as if she were taking the long step, but against her will. She screamed, and her scream seemed to hang in the air for an eternity, squeezed out as well, until both she and it had been pressed so thin that not even the fabric of space could hold them. The silver-white light vanished, and she staggered free of Virikhad’s power halfway across the arena from where she had been standing.

Strong hands grabbed her, and Ashi’s voice said, “I have you!” From somewhere else, Singe called her name. She looked up, saw first the kalashtar that Virikhad had seized, sprawled motionless once more, then Singe, charging across the arena floor.

And then the gray metal box that held the binding stones, lying abandoned on the sand.

“No,” she choked, fighting to put strength in her voice. “No! The stones!”

The warning came too late. Dah’mir was already in the air, his thin black heron form growing larger as he moved. At the same moment that Singe threw himself across the sand to embrace her, the dragon landed and threw himself against the open gate.

The impact of his body smashed the stonework. The gate collapsed, taking the last of the optimism Dandra had felt only moments before down with it. Dah’mir turned to stare at them. At her.

A thin squeaking whine filled the silence that followed the rumble of falling stones. Up in the private box, the big hobgoblin who had fought Ashi stood stiff and pale, his eyes fixed on Dah’mir, his toothy mouth hanging open in stunned panic at the sight of the dragon. Vennet turned around and slapped him. “Be quiet, Biish!”

Ashi put herself and the bright sword of her ancestor between Dandra and Dah’mir. Singe’s arm slipped from Dandra’s waist, and his hand clasped hers as he turned to face Dah’mir as well. The burning acid-green orbs of the dragon’s eyes were fixed entirely on Dandra, however. His muzzle peeled back from his massive teeth and he spoke.

“How did you do it?”

The question was so utterly unexpected that she could only look back at Dah’mir in stunned silence. Nor did Singe or Ashi have any answer. The wizard’s grip on her hand tightened. The hunter just eased back at little closer to her. But Dah’mir appeared to take their shock for defiance. His voice rose in a roar so loud that the arena shook and the dust rising from the collapsed gate shivered as if the air had been slapped.
“How did you do it?
How did you rouse my master’s servant?”

He took a step to the side, then whirled and paced the other way, the great blue-black Khyber shard set in his chest and the smaller red Eberron shards set along his forelegs flashing as he moved. His body turned and flowed like a cat’s, but his eyes never left Dandra’s. “It isn’t possible!” he screamed. “It
shouldn’t
be possible. Not now. Not here. How did you do it?”