The sound of the chime broke off abruptly as the woman cringed. The wizard collapsed in Ashi’s arms, gasping for breath. In the wake of his screams, the chamber seemed deadly silent. Dah’mir folded his hands and bent his head to the shuddering man. “Apologies,” he said. “Medala sometimes tries too hard to please me. If you’ve ever tried to train an animal-” he shrugged “-you know how it can be.”
There was a groan as Vennet sat up from the floor and touched his bloodied face-and then a gasp as he realized who stood before him. He struggled to his knees and bent his head. Blood pattered from his nose to the floor. Ashi found a bitter pleasure in the injuries that the shifter hand inflicted on him. Vennet might have freed her on his ship and arranged the trap that had finally brought down her quarry, but she was glad the shifter had bested him. Vennet was a good fighter, but he was a bad enemy.
The half-elf snuffled awkwardly around his broken nose. “Dah’mir! Medala! We weren’t expecting you for another two days! How did you get here so quickly?”
“When you contacted Medalashana last night and told her about your plans, I decided to leave my escort behind and travel ahead,” said Dah’mir. He offered, Ashi noticed, no further explanation. She was found herself disappointed. The terrible sound that had announced his arrival had been like nothing she’d heard before. If she wanted to know more, though, she wasn’t going to learn it from Dah’mir.
Vennet’s mouth opened as if to ask another question but then closed again. He fumbled at a pocket, then seem to scrape together the courage to look up at Dah’mir. “Lord,” he said respectfully, “this is yours.” He held out the crystal band-and cringed back as Medala darted forward and snatched it away with a cry.
“Captain d’Lyrandar,” said Dah’mir as if nothing had happened, “you’ve been of tremendous service.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve found that men of such faith as yours, however, do not give their services away. Name your price.”
Ashi saw Vennet’s throat work as he swallowed. “Power, Dah’mir,” he blurted. “Power and your blessing!”
Dah’mir’s full smile was a radiant thing that made even her heart lift with joy. “Greed is honest. I anticipated your request, Captain d’Lyrandar.” He reached into his robe, then extended his closed hand to Vennet. “Make what power you can of these,” he told him. He opened his hand to reveal two dragonshards-one midnight blue, the other dawn gold, each of them as thick as Ashi’s thumbs and twice as long.
Color drained from Vennet’s face as he took the crystals. “Dah’mir,” he said in awe, “this is more than-”
Dah’mir waved his hand dismissively. “Consider it a down payment on future services, then. Cunning and strength of the Dragon Below be yours.”
The green-eyed man touched him on the shoulder, then gestured for him to rise. Vennet climbed to his feet and bowed his head humbly.
“Whenever you need me, lord, just send word,” he said, then turned and walked out of the chamber, a vaguely stunned look on his face. The cultists who had crept down the stairs after Dah’mir reached out to touch the half-elf as he passed, as if something of the Dragon Below’s blessing might rub off on them.
As Vennet climbed the stairs, Fause thrust past him and threw himself at Dah’mir’s feet. He groveled, smearing his face against the floor. “Dark master!” he babbled. “A blessing! Please! A blessing!”
Dah’mir looked down at the wild-haired man, then stretched out a foot and pushed at him. Fause toppled over, squirming in ecstasy. Dah’mir raised an eyebrow. “Find me boats, Fause,” he said. “We’ll be returning to the marshes. And prepare your followers to accompany us. I’ll need a new escort.”
“Yes, dark master! At once!” babbled the man. Ashi stared at him in loathing.
“They play at power,” murmured Dah’mir to her. The green-eyed man stood close-possibly closer than he had ever stood to her before, close enough that Ashi could smell a slight metallic, acrid odor clinging to him. “They do not live with the Dragon Below. They are not the pure servants that the Bonetree hunters are.” He bent down and retrieved the huntmaster’s sword from where she had dropped it in her final charge and returned it to her. “I am pleased with your service. When we return to Bonetree territory, you will be the new master of my hunters.”
“Thank you, Revered,” Ashi replied tightly. “And until then?”
Dah’mir touched the groaning wizard, then the woman who had been Ashi’s quarry for so long. “They are in your charge,” he said. “Guard them and see that they survive the trip into marshes. The children of Khyber await their return to the mound.”
His touch lingered on the woman. “Especially your return,” he told her blank, staring face. “I’m very curious to learn how you slipped free of my control, Tetkashtai.”
Ashi blinked, but touched her lips and forehead as Dah’mir glanced at her. “I will watch over them, Revered,” she said obediently.
CHAPTER 11
“Come on,” Singe said with frustrated patience. “Come on, eat.”
He held a little chunk of meat to Dandra’s lips. He wasn’t exactly sure what kind of meat it was-fowl, snake, or something else-but it was cold and weirdly greasy. At least it was soft and shredded easily under his fingernails. “Eat,” he urged Dandra again.
She paid no attention to him. Her eyes were on Dah’mir, watching the green-eyed man in rapt fascination as he laughed and spoke with Fause and the other cultists around the fire of the night’s campsite. Virtually all she had done for the last two days was stare at him. Singe pushed the food against her unresisting lips. Her mouth finally opened and she took the meat, chewing it absently.
“Good,” Singe told her. “Now swallow.” She did, and that was a minor triumph, too. The first time Singe had tried to feed her, Dandra had just kept chewing, the food still in her mouth. Singe had never had to feed a child himself, but he was certain it would be something like this. He plucked another morsel from the small heap that he cupped in his palm and held it to Dandra’s lips. The slow process of coaxing her to take another bit of food began again.
At least it gave him something to focus on besides their situation. Two days spent in the broad boats that Fause had scrounged at Dah’mir’s command, two days spent rowing slowly upstream at Dah’mir’s command, two days spent rowing slowly upstream along the sluggish river that lay beyond Zarash’ak. Only Dah’mir, Medalashana, and Dandra had been spared the labor of rowing; Singe had been forced to take an oar alongside Ashi and the cultists. His shoulders and back burned and he had big welts wherever marsh flies had landed to nip at the salt on his sweaty skin. On the first day, the wound that Ashi’s thrown knife had inflicted on his arm had open up and bled profusely. Singe had faltered like a lame horse, with so many flies buzzing around the wound that he’d begun to imagine the wriggling of maggots and the stench of infection.
Ashi took the charge of looking after Dah’mir’s captives seriously, though. When the boats had been drawn up on a patch of dry land along the marshy riverside for the first night’s camp, she had dragged Singe before Fause and forced the cult’s leader to use his prayers to heal the wound.
The touch of the Dragon Below’s power had made Singe long for his imagined maggots. Fause’s prayers brought no gentle healing-Singe’s flesh had flowed and knit together in a horrible, unclean rippling. All through that night, he had found himself touching his arm, half-expecting to find some vile cyst left behind where the wound had been. He’d stared up at the cold stars and shivered, feeling more alone than he ever had before.
The image of Geth plunging into the foul water under Zarash’ak-defiant to the last, Natrac and Dandra’s psicrystal lost with him-played itself out in his memory again and again. The anger he had carried for nine years seemed as empty as the revenge against Dah’mir that they had planned on the hillside above the Eldeen Reaches.