Free The Grieving Tree: The Dragon Below Book II by Don Bassingthwaite Page B

want to expose her to danger.”
    Her. A woman. It was the first time the half-orc had given away any information at all about his historian. In another situation, Geth might have teased him or tried to drag out more, but this was no time for jokes. “If we can get there without being spotted, she won’t be in any danger,” he said. “Besides, we need her information, don’t we? The sooner we get it, the sooner we can get out of Zarash’ak.”
    “The hard part will be going anywhere without being seen,” said Ashi. “We might be able to avoid Vennet, but the herons can see anything in the streets.”
    Natrac exhaled slowly. “I know a way,” he said. “We should wait here a while, give Vennet a chance to move on, then we’ll go.” He looked up, his eyes dark. “But if anyone gets hurt …”
    “No one will get hurt, Natrac,” Geth said. He thumped his fist against his chest. “I promise. We’ll be like ghosts. No one will even know we’re there.”

    Dah’mir was waiting by the river boat, sitting on a water cask as if it were a throne, when Vennet finally returned to the docks with his crew. Dah’mir’s green eyes flashed. “You didn’t catch them,” he said.
    “No,” Vennet told him. “They got away.” He hesitated, then added. “Ashi was with Geth, lord.”
    “I saw her,” said Dah’mir. “It doesn’t please me.”
    Vennet’s crew moved around them, silently loading the last of the supplies into the river boat, resuming the tasks they had abandoned to take up the chase. The strength of Dah’mir’s control over them was, Vennet had to admit, astounding. Even during the chase, not one of the men had roused. It would take only one of the men escaping and passing on word of what had taken place on
Lightning on Water
for House Lyrandar to begin an investigation. There would be rumors enough soon—his passengers and cargo should have been delivered to Trolanport days ago.
    “Be at ease, captain,” said Dah’mir. The green-eyed man must have guessed what was in his head—Vennet had wondered before at his uncanny knowledge, though Dah’mir insisted there was nothing magical about it, only practice in reading faces. “When I have regained my strength, the Dragon Below will see to all things. You will have the power and wealth you desire and your secret will be safe.”
    Vennet pressed his lips together. “I’m risking everything for you, lord.”
    “And your risk will be rewarded, captain. You have my word.”
    The priest’s promise soothed the worshipper of Khyber within him. The first time he’d heard of Dah’mir—through Singe, then through Ashi—he’d seen the potential in allying himself with the priest. Betraying Singe, Geth, and Dandra had been little enoughand he had profited from it. Dah’mir had rewarded him with two large and valuable dragonshards, a blue-black Khyber shard and a golden Siberys shard, now hidden in a strongbox beneath the floor of his cabin. The shards had been, Dah’mir claimed, a beacon to him after he had been wounded in the battle at the Bonetree mound. The priest had used powerful magic to fling himself and his birds through a plane of shadow, traveling hundred of miles from the battlefield to
Lightning on Water
in only hours.
    But Vennet had been a scion of House Lyrandar long before he’d joined the cult of the Dragon Below. As awed and honored as Vennet had been to wake and find Dah’mir in his cabin and in need of his aid, the training of Lyrandar had left him skeptical. The priest wasn’t telling him everything. There was something about the battle at the Bonetree mound that he had left out. Vennet believed his tale of the orc raiders and the Gatekeepers, of Ashi’s betrayal, of Medala’s destruction at Dandra’s hand, of the dolgaunt Hruucan’s fiery death at Singe’s—of Dah’mir’s own injury by the strange ancient sword wielded by Geth. The wound that scarred the priest’s chest still showed no sign of healing even a week