The Killing Song Part 6

"Do you think he'll send House Deneith after us?" Ashi asked.

"Probably not. That would play his hand too soon. I wouldn't underestimate what he could accomplish on his own, though. This isn't good. It isn't good at all." He rubbed fingers across his eyes in frustration.

The motion brought a crinkle of paper from his vest. He reached into his pocket and extracted the message that had been waiting for him and looked at it. "You know," he said, "I don't even know that this is from Geth. I told him to send a message by Orien post, not Sivis messenger."

"Are you going to look?"

Singe shrugged and broke the wax that had sealed the message-if Mithas had read it, he managed to seal it up again-and scanned the few lines written on the gray paper in the neat script of a gnome scribe. His mouth twitched, and he squeezed his eyes shut, but he could still see the words.

"Is it from Geth?"

"It's from Geth," he said. He opened his eyes and read the message: 5 Aryth Singe, We got to Zarash'ak yesterday. Staying with Bava. She gave us money for Sivis and says h.e.l.lo to Natrac. Buying a boat and heading up river to Fat Tusk tomorrow. Good luck in Sharn. Send word back to Bava if you're still alive when this is over.

Geth

He folded the message again. His jaw ached, he was holding it so tightly. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything more than that, but twelve moons-all that trouble and this is what we get!" He crushed the message in his hand.

"We got something else," Ashi said. She held out the sc.r.a.p of paper she had acquired in the Deneith enclave. "This was on the pillar by the Sentinel Marshals display."

"The pillar of warrant-notices?" Singe took the paper and smoothed it out.

It was indeed a warrant-notice, now somewhat torn by Ashi's removal of it from the pillar. It had yellowed with age, and Singe guessed that it was many years old. Many years also separated the face printed in woodblock on the notice from the face that Singe knew, but both the face and the name below it were familiar.

Natrac of Graywall. Wanted in Sharn for extortion, arson, armed a.s.sault, a.s.sault and battery, fraud, theft, suspicion of murder, suspicion of slave-trading ...

The hood of his cowl pulled low, Natrac slid a few copper crowns across the bar. The wood was rough, cracked from moisture and scarred by blades. The old goblin on the other side of the bar had a face to match and big eyes that didn't look like they missed anything. He made the coins disappear with the practiced ease of an old pickpocket and said in the guttural language of his race, "I've seen someone like that second fellow. Wears a hat that shades his face and covers his ears, so I don't know if he's a half-elf for sure, but he's got the build and he doesn't bother to hide his hair. Long and blond. I know people who would kill for that hair. Wigmakers pay good money."

Vennet. Natrac's gut tightened and his belly gurgled from watery ale consumed in nearly a dozen vile taverns. "Where did you see him? When?" he asked in Goblin.

"Two Boot Way near Nightpot Close." The bartender shrugged skinny shoulders. "I've seen him a few times. I cut that way when I come to work."

"Was there anyone with him? The pale human with green eyes I asked about?"

The goblin examined him for a moment as if a.s.sessing whether he could get another bribe out of his mysterious visitor, then shrugged again. "No. Haven't seen anyone like that."

"What about a heron ... a big, skinny bird with black feathers and green eyes?"

This time the goblin snorted. "You look like you know your way around, chib. When have you ever seen a bird in Malleon's Gate?"

Natrac had to admit that he had a point. He took a sip from the mug of ale that the goblin had put in front of him when he'd first approached the bar.

Dandra and Singe weren't going to be happy that he'd risked going down to Malleon's Gate alone. Ashi would be furious that he'd gone to the dangerous district without her. If he'd been going anywhere else, he would have brought all three of them along-Lords of the Host, he thought, I'm not stupid!-but he had told Dandra the truth. Malleon's Gate wasn't the place to start a fight. One person could pa.s.s through the dens and lairs of the district with far less trouble than four. Especially if he knew his way around. In spite of the years since he'd left Sharn, the important things in Malleon's Gate hadn't changed. A couple of taverns closed, a couple more opened, a few old acquaintances dead, but he didn't want to see old acquaintances. He'd made a point of talking only to people he didn't know and who presumably didn't know him. It had taken longer to get answers, but it had kept his head on his shoulders.

But Singe, Dandra, and Ashi might still have reason to forgive him his secrets. He'd hoped to pick up rumors in Sharn's underworld that might point to Dah'mir or his activities. He hadn't actually expected to find solid information on Vennet d'Lyrandar-and finding the treacherous half-elf was as good as finding the dragon. Natrac couldn't believe the two would be far apart.

Two Boot Way was a common short cut. Vennet could still be almost anywhere in Malleon's Gate, but knowing he was in the district was a very good start.

Natrac took another sip from his mug, then set it aside and pushed himself away from the bar. "Thanks for the word."

"This half-elf's nothing to me," said the goblin. The little bartender hesitated, then added, "You might want to be careful with him. When I've seen him, he's had a big sailor's cutla.s.s on his belt and he's always been talking to himself. I think he might be ..." He tapped his temple.

"He is," grunted Natrac. He turned away from the bar-and froze.

At a table against one wall of the tavern, twin reflections of his face talked and laughed. A third version of him chatted to a young hobgoblin woman at another table. As he watched, a fourth Natrac walked in through the tavern door and received a loud hail from his duplicates.

The goblin behind the bar must have misinterpreted his surprise. "They call themselves the Broken Mirror," he said with disgust in his voice. "Bunch of changeling lunatics-they pick someone and all of them take his appearance until someone else catches their fancy. Some poor sap is going to find trouble at his door in the morning."

Natrac remembered the changelings on the waterfront that afternoon and the one who had copied his face before he'd pulled up his cowl. He held back a curse. "How many of them are there?" he asked the bartender.

"Five or six. They've probably been spread out around Malleon's Gate through the night. They like to get together after they've done their mischief and swap stories. I heard that one time they ..."

Natrac didn't listen to the rest of what the goblin had to say. If his face had been walking through Malleon's Gate all night, there was going to be more than trouble. It was past time he left the district. The quiet of Overlook was suddenly very appealing. Keeping his head down and his distance from the changelings, he moved for the door.

He was about halfway there when it flew open and a big bugbear squeezed through. Natrac was used to standing a head or more taller than other people, but the bugbear stood a head taller than him. The creature's thickly-muscled shoulders were as wide as one of the tavern tables and his broad ears were as ragged and scarred as the tabletops. Below wiry brows so thick they merged with the hair on his head, a leathery black nose twitched and sniffed at the air.

In his grip was another Natrac, except that this one's face was battered and bruised.

Heads turned to meet the bugbear-every voice in the tavern fell silent as he stood aside and a hobgoblin with very large, very prominent teeth entered. His gaze fell on the startled changelings and anyone near them pulled away.

"Which one of you is Paik?" the hobgoblin snarled.

The Natrac that had been flirting with the hobgoblin woman took a step back. His features blurred and melted, a.s.suming the pale moon-faced appearance of a changeling's natural form. Before the transformation was even complete, the hobgoblin man strode over to him and snapped a hand around his throat. "Where did you see the half-orc whose face you copied?"

Paik croaked out a babbling answer about Cliffside and a stranger just come off a ship. The hobgoblin's dark eyes grew narrow, and his wolf-like ears stood erect as he listened. Natrac glanced toward the door. No one else in the tavern was moving. If he made a break for the door, the bugbear would notice. He forced himself to remain still.

Paik's voice trailed off into blubbering pleas. The hobgoblin gave him a shake and dropped him, then swept the room with his gaze. Natrac held his breath, but the dark eyes pa.s.sed right over him. After a moment, the hobgoblin raised his voice. "Five gold galifars to anyone who brings me news of the man whose face these gaa'ma were wearing. Fifteen if they turn him over to me!"

Just barely visible past his cowl, Natrac saw the bartender's face go from frightened to surprised to cunning as he figured out the real reason behind his customer's surprise at the sight of the changelings. The goblin's arm rose sharply. "Him!" he shouted, pointing at Natrac. "Try him!"

The hobgoblin whirled, but Natrac was already moving. He darted to one side of the bugbear in an attempt to get past him, but the big creature turned swiftly, tracking him. Natrac flicked his knife-hand free of the long sleeve that had concealed it and made a feint with the intention of keeping the bugbear back.

Instead of flinching, the bugbear drew back his meaty arm and flung the changeling at Natrac.

Natrac caught a brief glimpse of his own bruised face and let his knife-hand fall, but he couldn't get out of the way in time. The heavy weight of the changeling knocked him back into a flimsy table. He went down in a tangle of broken wood and his own limbs. Big, hairy hands grabbed him by one shoulder and the wrist of his knife-hand and hauled him to his feet. Another hand jerked back his cowl.

The hobgoblin stood in front of him with rage smoldering in his eyes. Natrac managed a smile that would have done Singe justice. "h.e.l.lo, Biish," he said.

There was a short, heavy club in Biish's fist. He brought it down so hard and fast that Natrac didn't even feel the blow before he fell into unconsciousness.

CHAPTER.

8.

Geth was dreaming. He dreamed that he was on a battlefield, faceless enemies coming at him in unending waves. He felt no fear, though. He howled his courage and strength at his enemies, and met them with his great gauntlet on his right arm and Wrath gripped in his left hand. He tore through them in a whirling, unstoppable dance. Dark blood flowed, flesh and bones split, and his enemies fell before him. Sometimes the shadows parted to reveal the faces of dolgrims or chuul, Bonetree hunters or Aundairian raiders, the soldiers of Breland or Thrane. They all died. His goal lay ahead, clearly visible across the battlefield: the mound of the Bonetree clan. He would reach it soon. He was unstoppable, invulnerable, his body and his spirit in perfect harmony. He threw back his head and roared to a sky lit bright by the Ring of Siberys and all twelve moons.

He didn't want the dream to end-not just because of the clean exhilaration of the fight, but because his friends and allies fought alongside him. Orshok, Krepis, and Kobus fought with him. Ashi, Natrac, and Ekhaas. Singe and Dandra guarded his back with magical flame and psionic whitefire. Adolan fought beside him, his heavy spear thrusting and spinning.

On his other side, another younger Singe in the blue jacket of the Blademarks emblazoned with the silver crest of the Frostbrand company. Other friends from the lost company were there too. Treykin, Coron, Dew, Leed, Jahanah, Falko, Bikk ... Somewhere, even Robrand d'Deneith rode, calling orders to the men and women in his command.

And Geth felt nothing but joy at seeing them again. There was no grief at seeing Adolan. There was no anger at confronting Robrand and no shame at seeing the Frostbrand-even though Geth knew he should have felt it.

In the way of dreams, that moment of doubt started everything unraveling. Geth's arms felt heavy suddenly, gauntlet and sword dragging on them. Enemies stopped falling so easily. The faces of allies faded, becoming as shadowy as those of the figures they fought. Above the sounds of battle, Robrand's clear calls became bitter, directed at him rather than the company. "Fight, you coward! Fight! The city depends on you-fall and you kill Narath and the Frostbrand!"

"Frostbrand!"

The cry brought him around. One of the Frostbrand had left his position. Black curls shone as the man bounded forward to meet a charging band of enemy fighters.

"Coron!" Geth shouted after him The first of the enemy fighters sidestepped the mercenary's attack, dropped to his knees and swung a knife in a tight arc. Coron's right leg collapsed under him. Even as he fell, though, he thrust with his own blade, and one of the enemy jerked back. Clear as sun on a bright day, Geth saw red blood burst from an ear cut away by a chance blow.

The sound that reached him would have been terrible coming from the throat of any living creature. Geth's gut collapsed into a knot as the injured man kicked the sword out of Coron's hand, grabbed a handful of black curls, and raised a knife so heavy it looked like a butcher's tool. Coron's eyes rolled back as he saw his death ready to fall.

"No!" Geth roared. He leaped forward. "No!-"

"-No!" He sat up with the cry on his lips, his heart thundering in his chest. He might have jumped up and drawn Wrath if there hadn't been an orc lying across his legs. The warrior grunted and opened eyes bleary with sleep and drink to glare at him.

"Hacha, shekot, hacha!" he groaned and rolled off Geth's legs to fall back into slumber.

Geth sat still, letting the world come back to him as the dream faded. He was in a tent, the air close and heavy with the mingled smell of bodies and ale. It wasn't the tent Batul had a.s.signed to them. Orcs lay around him. Some were twitching slightly, some were snoring. All were asleep. Kobus sat propped up against a pile of gear, his head lolling on his ma.s.sive chest, a mug still in one hand, a huge chunk of gristly meat in the other. Sunlight pierced the gap of the tent flap in a hot, yellow bar. When Geth felt capable of movement again, he rose, pulled his shirt and vest from under the head of an orc who had been using them as a pillow, and stepped carefully to the flap.

Opening it let more light into the tent, bringing a new moan of protest from the orc Geth had woken. The shifter ducked out into the open air quickly and let the flap fall behind him. The camp of the Angry Eyes horde lay quiet except for a few warriors making a valiant attempt to carry on their celebrations with quiet singing and music, the same strange combination of drums and bone rattles that had filled Geth's skull through the night. A good number of warriors hadn't even made it into tents or huts and lay asleep on the bare ground. The sun had climbed just high enough above the horizon that the softness of dawn had given way to the harsher heat and light of morning. At the center of the camp, a strong fire still burned, heating rocks for the Gatekeepers' sweat lodge and sending a thick column of smoke into the air, but everywhere else fading embers gave up only thin threads of smoke that clung to the ground in a foul mist.

All told, the camp looked exactly how Geth felt. Vague memories of drinking, singing, and dancing with the warriors of the horde came back to his throbbing head. Something else came back to him and he reached up to touch his face above and below his eyes. Thick smears of red paint crumbled under his fingers. The other warriors of the horde, he corrected himself. He remembered taking the horde marks from Kobus's hands.

He groaned and stumbled for the nearest campfire with orcs still around it. The lingering warriors gave him a hero's cheer. Geth answered with a vague wave that seemed to satisfy them. A mug had been abandoned beside a big skin bag that could have held water or ale. He threw away what liquid remained in the mug and refilled it from the bag. Water. He grunted in disappointment and looked at one of the orcs.

The dream clung to him like a curse. He needed to talk to someone about it. "Gede Orshok?" he asked thickly. He'd tried to master a few simple questions in Orc on the journey from Tzaryan Keep-Wrath let him understand the language but didn't help him speak it. The warrior, however, just shrugged. Geth tried again. "Gede Ekhaas? Gede Dhakaani?"

The orc broke out in laughter and started babbling to one of the other warriors, who also laughed. Geth considered using Wrath to find out what was so amusing, but couldn't quite summon up the energy. Taking his mug of water, he found the shady side of a tent and squatted down on the ground.

For all that the majority of the dream had been pleasant, there had been something distinctly unnatural about it. He hadn't dreamed about the Frostbrand in years, and he'd never dreamed about them in such a happy way. He had happy memories of the company, of course, but in his experience, those weren't the memories that came back to him in dreams.

Coron's death, that was more typical, though even it was something he hadn't seen in his nightmares for a long, long time. The thought brought visions of the man's murder rising up within him. Geth squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, choking the memory back. The effort left his stomach aching.

Why had the dream come to him at all? If he was going to dream about fighting, a battle wouldn't have been his first choice. A good brawl would have been better. His fight with Kobus. Any number of scuffles in camps and taverns with the Frostbrand to back him up. Good-natured fights with members of the Frostbrand. People didn't die so often in brawls as they did in battles.

Maybe, he thought, it was because of the night spent with the warriors of the horde. That would explain the strange presence of the Bonetree mound in his dream. Even so, how could the spirit of the horde-the wild unity that gave it strength-have affected him so quickly and so deeply ...

Something stirred at the back of his mind, a half-buried memory. He frowned and tried to recall it, but it kept slipping away as if it didn't want to be remembered. Geth concentrated hard, pulling back the wisps of his dream and the haze of the night. Something Batul had said. Something about the warriors of the horde sharing fires ...

The old druid's words crept into his mind like scared dogs. "Warriors arrive in the camp and fall into the horde as if they've been sharing a fire for days," Batul had said. "The council is nearly ready to make a decision and getting a dozen Gatekeepers to agree on dinner usually takes weeks of debate."

Geth's eyes narrowed and he drew a long breath. What was going on? He raised his mug and sipped at his water.

When he lowered the mug, he saw Ekhaas coming toward him. In contrast to Geth, she didn't look like she was suffering after the night-she might have been turned out for a Blademarks inspection. There were no horde marks on her face. Geth tried to remember if he'd seen her at all through the night. If he had, it was only in pa.s.sing, a face in the shadows observing the celebrations as he took part in them.

As she pa.s.sed the campfire, the orcs called out something to her. She stopped and gave them a glare of such loathing that they shrank back in silence. The hobgoblin continued on and stood over Geth.

"Why did they just call me your 'honeycomb-dancer'?" she said in a voice that made Geth flinch.

"No idea," he said and gulped more water.

Ekhaas's ears tipped forward in suspicion, and her lip curled in an expression that managed to encompa.s.s both disdain and disbelief, but she crouched beside him.

"We need to talk," she said. "Something is wrong in this camp."

He looked at her carefully. Her eyes seemed hard, but there was something haunted in their amber depths, as if Ekhaas had seen something that unsettled her. Geth thought he could guess what that something was. "Did you have a strange dream last night?" he asked. "A dream of fighting with all your friends beside you?"

Her ears stood up sharply. "I was in a battle out of legend, wielding sword and song alongside the heroes of my people. We were fighting to reach a hill."

"Not a hill. The Bonetree mound." A chill pa.s.sed across Geth. "Ekhaas, we had the same dream. And last night, I think Batul tried to warn me about something-"

"That the camp is on the edge of frenzy?"

"That warriors are joining the horde too easily."

She wrinkled her nose. "The same thing. Among my people, orcs are infamous for going into battle with more enthusiasm than sense, but the mood in this camp is like a herd of tribex protecting a gravid female. Last night you and Orshok were practically painting horde marks on your faces the moment we arrived."

Geth flushed. "You weren't?"

"I'm a duur'kala." A hint of Ekhaas's normal arrogance crept into her voice. "I'm trained to inspire and manipulate people. You can't do that effectively without learning to recognize the signs of manipulation in yourself."

"Wait," said Geth. "You think we're actually being manipulated?"

"I'm certain of it." Her ears twitched forward and her voice dropped. "It's a subtle thing, a touch so light that it's hard to feel it, but last night after you were swept off, I scouted the camp, watching and listening. When I found myself wanting to join in an orc campfire song, I knew something wasn't right." She rubbed at her temples as if the thought pained her. "Whatever is happening, it encourages those in the camp to follow their natural tendencies. In a duur'kala, the urge to sing. In orc warriors, the urge to join with the horde." She glanced at him. "In a shifter, perhaps the urge to join the horde as well, to fight and demonstrate strength."

He wanted to protest, but the argument made too much sense. It touched on his own suspicions and on Batul's warning.

But there had been two parts to that warning, hadn't there? He sat up straight, water slopping out of his mug. "Grandfather Rat! The Gatekeepers-Batul said they're coming to a decision more quickly than normal too."

Ekhaas bared her teeth. "I wondered that the druids could allow this to happen. They're caught in it too. Khaavolaar."

"How is that possible?" Geth asked. "Batul seemed to know what was happening. Why isn't he doing something about it?"

"The manipulation may be light, but that doesn't mean it's not powerful. And Batul did do something-he warned you."