A lithe body leaped up onto the platform and lunged for the box. Vennet. Geth howled and swung Wrath at the half-elf in a powerful arc.
The blade cracked against the heavy shaft of an out-flung mace. An ogre’s strength thrust him back. Chuut stepped up between Geth and Vennet, mace raised to strike again-and abruptly Geth was aware once more of the chaos around him. He and Orshok were surrounded. At the mouth of the passage, Ashi tried to shield Dandra, her sword outstretched as she attempted to menace three ogres and Tzaryan himself simultaneously. Ekhaas, Natrac slumped against her, and Singe stood back to back, more ogres on one side of them and Hruucan’s fiery form on the other. Robrand stood with his sword drawn, but not moving, just turning around and around as if overcome by the rush. He looked older than Geth could have imagined.
“Dah’mir!” Ekhaas’s voice rose out of the confusion. “Your pledge! You gave the word of a dragon that you’d let us leave!”
Dah’mir stood tall in the shadows, his eyes bright and intense. “So long as I needed the sword!” he said with a triumphant hiss. “And now I don’t need the sword anymore. Didn’t I say that Geth would come out and give me what I want?” He looked down at Geth. “I’m certain,” he added, “that when Taruuzh made that lhesh shaarat, he had no idea that anyone other than a goblinoid or maybe an orc would ever wield it. The Dhakaani had a high opinion of themselves.”
“So do dragons,” Geth growled.
Immense teeth flashed as Dah’mir’s jaws snapped together. “In our case, it’s the truth.”
“Master!” Vennet had the box. It was no longer or wider than the length of Geth’s forearm and no deeper than a hand span, but the half-elf hefted it as though it was heavy. An ogre reached out to help him but Vennet grimaced and twisted away. “Get back!” he snapped. He dragged the box off of the platform by himself and hauled it over to Dah’mir.
“Open it,” said the dragon. Vennet set the box down, fumbled with the latch, then threw open the lid.
Blue-black dragonshards, each no bigger than a finger, each wrapped in a filigree of gold, shone against rich red fabric. There were fewer than Geth would have guessed-twenty maybe, no more-but the sight of them brought an ache to his heart. He’d failed. He’d made the wrong choice. Somewhere below the great chamber, Taruuzh’s ghost let out a soft, fading wail.
“Take one out,” Dah’mir told Vennet. “They won’t harm you. Hold it up for me.”
The ancient fabric cradling the stones crumbled at Vennet’s touch, but the half-elf plucked out a stone and held it high. “They’re beautiful,” he said.
“They’re more than beautiful.” The dark shard reflected the acid-green of Dah’mir’s eyes as the dragon bent close to examine it. “They’re seeds. From them will spring my master’s new servants.” He glanced up at Geth-and smiled. “Perhaps we should plant the first seed now.” His long neck twisted toward the passage. “Dandra,” he said, “come here.”
Unblinking, her face expressionless, Dandra took a step forward.
“No!” Ashi tried to push her back, but in the moment that she was distracted, the ogres facing her surged forward. Ashi’s voice rose in a scream of rage. Her sword thrust and darted, caught one ogre in the knee cap and another in the belly, then Tzaryan Rrac stepped close and snatched the sword from her, wrapping his hand around the blade itself. For an instant, black blood flowed, but when the ogre mage flung the sword away, his hand bore no injury. Tzaryan and his ogres lunged at the unarmed hunter in unison, dragging her down. Ashi twisted, punched, and kicked, still trying to grab for Dandra. Geth cried out and would have leaped to Ashi’s side, but Chuut swung his mace and he was forced to stumble back.
“Dandra!” shouted Singe. “Twelve moons-Dandra!”
Unmindful of anything that was happening around her, Dandra kept walking toward Dah’mir and the binding stone. Ashi squirmed out from among the writhing tangle of ogres that tried to hold her and grabbed at the kalashtar. “You won’t have her!” she spat. “You will not have her!”
Tzaryan caught the hunter’s leg. Ashi’s grasp fell short. Her fingertips only brushed at Dandra’s back.
But the air seemed to shimmer at that brief contact-and Dandra froze. For a heartbeat, her eyes opened wide, then she flung back her head and screamed. Against her chest, her psicrystal pulsed with a yellow-green glow. Her feet left the ground and she rose to hover an armslength above it, still screaming. Behind her, Tzaryan and his ogres sprang away from Ashi as if in shock at Dandra’s cry but Geth realized immediately that they were springing away from Ashi herself.
Lines of radiant color were drawing themselves across the hunter’s exposed skin, curling up from the hand with which she had reached for Dandra and racing across her arms, her legs, her face-
“By the houses,” choked Robrand.
“A Siberys mark,” Singe said. “The Siberys Mark of Sentinel!”
“No!” howled Vennet, the binding stone slipping from his fingers to fall to the ground. “She can’t have a Siberys mark! I have a Siberys mark!”
Ashi just knelt on the ground, staring at her arms.
Then Dandra stopped screaming.
CHAPTER 20
She saw and heard everything. Taruuzh’s howls from below at the wash of Dah’mir’s mad power. Natrac and Orshok’s torture on the Grieving Tree. Singe’s torment by Hruucan. Robrand’s cursing of Geth and Geth’s rejection of the old man’s anger. She saw the terrible decision that Dah’mir had forced on the shifter. She saw Orshok’s fall from the tree, Geth’s rush to the young druid, and the shocking consequences of his compassion. She watched Dah’mir roar in triumph as his allies surrounded her friends. Surrounded her, even as Ashi tried to hold them back.
She saw everything-and could do nothing, not even turn away. Her gaze was fixed on Dah’mir and everything that happened around the dragon.
Her mind’s eye saw nothing better. With each moment that Dah’mir’s power held her, the storm of Tetkashtai’s terror only grew stronger. Let me in, Dandra! Il-Yannah, let me in-I can’t take this anymore!
No! Dandra thrust back against Tetkashtai with all of her will. It barely moved the presence. Once she’d been able to contain her creator, to hold her in the prison of her psicrystal. Now it seemed like the connection that bound them had burst open like a floodgate-it felt like she was try to hold back a raging river. Tetkashtai, work with me! she begged. Dah’mir’s power can’t hold you-maybe we can find a way to beat him!
Beat him? Tetkashtai swirled and surged, her light flashing bright with new fear and pressing even closer. We can’t beat him! We have to run and you’re not running!
We can beat him, Tetkashtai, but you need to-
Beyond the storm of light, Dandra saw Vennet open the ancient box that had been hidden in the Grieving Tree and lift out one of Taruuzh’s binding stones. Even through the storm she could feel the stone on the edge of her awareness like a void in the fabric of the world. Il-Yannah, she whispered silently. For a moment, panic gripped her-
— and gave Tetkashtai a grip on her. Light lashed through her defenses and wrapped around her like one of Hruucan’s flaming tentacles. Dandra grasped and writhed. Tetkashtai’s voice rolled through her mind. I will have my body back! the presence howled.
But another voice spoke even louder. “Dandra,” said Dah’mir, “come here.”
His acid-green eyes shone like beacons, drawing her to him. Dandra felt her body respond with a step forward. Ashi’s hand grasped her-then was torn away as Tzaryan and his ogres pulled her down. Tetkashtai! she shouted. Tetkashtai, stop fighting me!