Don Bassingthwaite - The Binding Stone

Dandra bit her lip to hold back her laughter as Natrac spun out the punchline of a long and embarrassingly self-deprecating anecdote. He probably wouldn’t have noticed if she had smiled, though. All of his attention was on Singe. The wizard sat near the head of the captain’s table, to the right of Vennet’s empty chair. His face was a stern mask of disapproval. He had to be working even harder than her, Dandra knew, to keep a straight face against Natrac’s frantic attempts to ingratiate himself.

In truth, Singe had told her their first night on Lighting on Water , Natrac had been right all along. House Deneith had no interest in such a small, isolated operation as Natrac’s. Still, he hadn’t been able to resist winding up the blustering half-orc. The ship’s other passengers had picked up on the joke as well. Even thin, hunched Pandon kept his face buried in a goblet to hide his grin as Natrac’s anecdote lurched to an end. The cabin was silent. Dandra was certain she saw a drop of sweat run down the half-orc’s face as he waited for a reaction from Singe.

In the back of her mind, Tetkashtai gave a silent sniff of disapproval. Childish . Dandra ignored her. Singe straightened and she could see a grave and measured response growing in his eyes.

It never reached his lips. The door of the cabin swung open and a panting crewman burst through to point at Natrac. “Captain says get yourself a ft!”

Natrac’s gray skin grew even paler and for a moment he seemed frozen between responding to the captain and toadying to Singe. The urgency in the crewman’s face was obvious, though.

“Go!” Singe shouted at Natrac. “Go!”

The half-orc leaped from his seat and raced out of the cabin. Vennet’s crewman went with him. The silence around the captain’s table was real.

Dandra stood up. “We should see what it is.”

Singe nodded and rose as well.

They reached the hatch of the aft hold hard on Natrac’s heels. Dandra could hear the sounds of fighting below. A brawl had broken out. The crew of Lightning on Water were clustered around the hatch. Vennet, Geth, and two big crewmen were disappearing down into the hold.

Only a heartbeat later, a terrible snarl ripped up from below.

“Geth!” Dandra exclaimed.

“Twelve moons,” cursed Singe. “That can’t be good!”

He pushed through the clustered crew, shoved past Natrac, and darted down the steps into the hold. Dandra followed close behind him. Down below, the two big crewmen were laying into Natrac’s brawling clients. Vennet had waded into the fight as well, pulling the combatants apart with a ferocious ease that belied his slight frame, cursing blasphemously the whole time.

Geth, however, was bounding straight to the heart of the free-for-all. The tall woman who fought there whirled at his approach. Anger washed over a face flushed from combat and Ashi gave the screaming battle cry of the Bonetree hunters.

Light of il-Yannah! wailed Tetkashtai. Where did she come from?

Dandra watched Geth shift as he charged-his hair bristling and growing thicker, his body becoming subtly tougher, even the features of his face turning coarser and more beastlike. As he closed with Ashi, the hunter snapped a leg around in a fast kick that smashed into his side. Geth shrugged it off.

He responded with hammering punches of his own. Ashi stumbled backward under the flurry, barely able to block the shifter’s fists. When she managed to react with punches and kicks herself, Geth swung his right arm to defend himself with blocks that just as often turned into heavy blows. Dandra could see why Geth’s weapon of choice was the massive great-gauntlet-it was a extension of his own natural fighting style. Spinning and darting around Ashi, he took all of the punishment that she served out and returned it in equal measure.

But the Bonetree hunter had the advantage of height and the beams in the ceiling of the hold ran only a couple of feet above her head. Ashi caught Geth with a solid, double-fisted blow that seemed to rattle even the tough shifter, then as he shook off the strike, jumped up and wrapped her hands around the top of one beam. Hanging from it, she snapped her body forward, putting her entire weight behind a stomping kick with both feet square to Geth’s chest. The shifter made a wheezing noise and flailed back away from her.

Ashi dropped to the ground in a crouch. Across the hold, her eyes met Dandra’s. The kalashtar froze. Geth was down. The burly sailors had their hands full keeping back Natrac’s struggling brawlers. Singe stood in front of her protectively, but he was unarmed-and his fiery spells were as useless on a wooden ship as most of her own powers. Most, though not all. She reached desperately for the vayhatana she had used to move the stone in the Bull Hole. If she was fast, she could use it hold Ashi back. Tetkashtai, I need your help!

The only response from the presence was another wail of despair.

To one side of the hold, though, Vennet turned from bashing a man’s head against a barrel. Dandra saw his eyes narrow as he took in the hunter’s menacing stance. He shoved the man he had been struggling with away and turned to face Ashi. Even as her crouch turned into an outstretched leap for Dandra, concentration flickered across the half-elf’s features. The dragonmark that patterned the back of his neck shimmered.

The roaring of a gale filled the hold. Dandra felt it only as a strong breeze, but in a path in front of Vennet, loose objects and abandoned clothing flapped and tumbled, blown up into the air. The worst of the windstorm, however, was focused directly on Ashi. Its unseen force snatched the leaping hunter out of the air and slammed her back into a stack of crates. Her impact scattered them and left her sprawled on the floor, struggling to climb back to her feet in the face of the howling wind. She grabbed at a big, heavy barrel and clung to it.

Now, Tetkashtai , urged Dandra. She reached into herself and forced an image of what they needed to do onto Tetkashtai. The frightened presence finally responded, entwining her skill with Dandra’s raw power.

A ripple of force passed through the air as invisible vayhatana wrapped around Ashi’s taut body-and around the barrel she clung to. With all of her will, Dandra held the two together. Trapped even as Vennet’s wind died away, Ashi spat and struggled, but the best she could do was rock the barrel from side to side.

Out of the corner of her eye, Dandra could see Vennet staring at her. All of Natrac’s other “clients” were staring, too-at her, Vennet, and a slowly rising Geth. The brawlers were silent, shifting uncomfortably.

Natrac peered down from above. “Is it over?” he asked.

Vennet’s angry gaze shifted to the half-orc and rage fell over his face. Natrac flinched and slowly slipped back through the hatch.

The mood around the captain’s table a short time later was far grimmer than it had been earlier in the evening. Vennet sat at the table’s head, Natrac and Geth to one side, Dandra and Singe to the other. In the aft hold, Ashi had been placed in shackles and chained to bolts driven into the wood of the ship. Lightning on Water had no brig. Chains had been the best solution Vennet could come up with. For the remainder of their voyage, the rest of the men and women who had taken Natrac’s offer of passage would sleep on the ship’s deck, their good behavior guaranteed by a promise from the captain that if they stepped out of line they would have to deal with him and Geth directly.

A few swift questions had already uncovered the instigator of the brawl: an ugly man who was still unconscious after Ashi had slammed the back of his head against the floor of the hold three or four times in quick succession. It was generally acknowledged that she had been defending herself against the man and two of his cronies-at least initially. Once the fighting had started, everyone had joined in, most siding with the ugly man. Ashi, it seemed, had not made herself popular among Natrac’s clients.