Don Bassingthwaite - The Binding Stone

“Wind or rain?” suggested Singe.

The shifter shook his head. “Probably not.”

Dandra pushed open the door. She recalled a beautiful foyer with stairs rising up to the second floor and the distant sound of trickling water. What actually lay beyond the door was a rickety, broken room with huge gaps in the walls. Stairs-every second step seemingly broken-rose to a second floor that sagged so badly she wasn’t sure she would have risked crossing it. The sound of water was the splashing of the river, echoing up from somewhere below.

A trail of blood led deeper into the house. Dandra gestured silently to the trail and started across the floor.

“No, Dandra!” snapped Geth. “There was no blood outside-”

His warning was too slow. A chunk of hurled wood cracked against the side of Dandra’s head and sent her stumbling to the ground. Gasping in pain and with Tetkashtai screeching in alarm, she twisted around. She caught a glimpse of movement as Singe shouted and darted to her side-only to be met by Ashi’s screaming battle cry as she leaped down through a broad hole in the ceiling. A kick caught Singe’s shoulder, spinning him around and driving him to the floor-

— which cracked and broke under the impact of Ashi’s landing. The tall woman’s battle cry turned into a yelp of alarm as the crumbling floorboards gave way beneath her and Singe. Stunned by Ashi’s blow, Dandra froze as both the hunter and the wizard plunged down into the darkness below.

“Rat!” Geth sprang to the splintered edge of the hole as two solid impacts below shook through the frame of the old house. Debris rained down around him. He held his gauntlet over his head and peered down. Singe and Ashi lay, tangled together and stunned, on the floor of a lower level about fifteen feet down and apparently much more solid than the one above.

There were shouts of alarm coming up from below as well. Ashi and Vennet weren’t alone! Geth glanced up at Dandra.

“Looks like this is the right house!” he spat. He spun around and slithered backward past the edge of the hole, lowering himself swiftly down. When his fingers clenched wood and he hung from outstretched arms, he grunted and kicked out.

Old wood screeched in protest but held firm as he swung and released, arcing through the air to hit the ground in a roll. He came up in a crouch and spun around as Ashi wrenched herself away from Singe. Geth leaped forward to stand over the wizard, his gauntlet up, his sword clearing its scabbard in one fluid movement. He had only a moment to take in the great chamber around him. Once it might have been a private water landing of some kind: there was a huge square opening in the center of the buckled floor with broad stairs running down and the sound of lapping water drifting up. Another long flight of stairs rose to the upper levels of the ruined house. Holes broken in the high ceiling let day’s light stab into the shadows.

Ashi drew her own sword and took a fast pace back-and then took another as Dandra fell through the hole above to land with an unnatural grace and lightness. Her spear glittered in her hand. Alarmed shouts turned to frightened cries, but one voice rode above them all.

“Hold your ground!” roared Vennet in a voice used to calling across the deck of a ship at sea. “Follow the plan, Fause! Temmen, be careful not to hurt the woman!”

The Lyrandar captain, his cutlass drawn, charged around the hole in the floor. A lean man wielding a thick quarterstaff followed close behind. From the hole’s far side rose the unified chanting of half a dozen men and women dressed in dark, shapeless robes, a wild-haired man with a look of madness on his face leading them. “Powers of Khyber, great Dragon Below, hear our prayer and lay low our enemies!”

“Grandfather Rat’s naked tail!” cursed Geth. Had he really thought an easy rescue might be possible?

Natrac slumped against the wall behind the chanting cultists. His already-fouled clothes were drenched with blood; his right hand had been brutally amputated at the wrist, the wound fire-seared to seal it. The half-orc’s skin looked waxy, but he was still breathing. He needed a healer. Geth had an unpleasant certainty that if they got out of the chamber alive, they would all need a visit to a healer.

He shifted and leaped at Ashi. He could feel the magic called down by the cultists fall over him like a shadow, trying to drag at his arms and fill him with self-doubt. The sensation of invincibility that flooded his veins flung the dark prayers back, though, and as Ashi’s sword flashed in the dim light, he caught her blow on his gauntlet and replied with a thrust of his own heavy Karrnathi sword. Ashi twisted aside, then arched her back to avoid a punch from the gauntlet as well. Her teeth clenched and she smiled, eyes shining as bright as her blade.

“You fight well, shifter!” she said. Her sword flicked high, then dove low. Geth anticipated the feint and caught the sword on his own, turning it aside. He and Ashi sprang apart, and she added, “I can see why Ner claimed you at the Gatekeeper circle!”

Geth settled into a defensive posture, sword and gauntlet both up. From the corner of his eye, he could see Dandra skimming toward Vennet and Temmen. Her spear darted out like a shining crystalline serpent, a fast and lethal strike.

Temmen knocked the blow away with one end of his staff, then struck back with the other end, forcing Dandra to parry wildly with the butt of her spear. Vennet slipped easily around both combatants, a wicked grin on his face. “Not a spearman as such,” he called out, “but on short notice, I think an expert in the quarterstaff will do!”

Geth managed to block a flurry of hard blows from Ashi that left his arm stinging. “Singe!” Geth yelled. The wizard was on his feet, but fumbling as he drew his rapier. The fall had knocked the wind out of him. “Singe, we could use a spell!”

“Then stop leading us into places made of wood!” wheezed the wizard. He hauled himself upright and jumped clear of both Ashi and Vennet. He moved his hand in an arcane gesture and spoke a word of magic. Three of the cultists pitched over, their eyes closed in unnatural sleep. The chant of the others faltered and Geth felt the baleful shadow of their prayer fade.

“Storm at dawn!” cursed Vennet in frustration. The half-elf wasn’t, however, looking at the fallen cultist, Geth realized. As he whirled in combat with Ashi, he saw Vennet dodge back and forth for a moment, then heard him curse again. “One will do!” he spat. “Ashi, move!”

“No!” the hunter snarled. The same battle lust that Geth had glimpsed in Ner’s eyes at the Bull Hole flared in Ashi’s. “I claim his death!”

“Neither of you can have it!” gasped Geth. He spun around Ashi and slammed his gauntleted elbow back in a hard blow that sent her reeling away.

And left a clear path between him and Vennet. The Lyrandar captain’s eyes narrowed.

There was no parrying or blocking the gust of wind that blasted out from him. It hit Geth like a moving wall and shoved him back. He caught half a glimpse of mold-slick stairs running down to dark and murky water before the wind battered him right over the edge of the hole in the chamber’s center.

He slammed into the stairs hard and started rolling and sliding on the slimy surface. Instinct opened his hand, releasing his sword before some random jarring bounce could send it plunging into his own body. The bone-jarring, teeth-rattling impacts of his body and limbs on the stairs came too fast to count, but as abruptly as the wild ride had started, it was over-with a tremendous splash, he hit water.

It was brown-green, cloudy, and warm. Geth felt unnamable lumps and ropy strands touch him as he sank and it was all that he could do to overcome the instinct to inhale. He spread his limbs and kicked hard back toward the surface. As soon he broke the surface, he gasped for air-then gagged and choked as something slimy rippled off his face and slithered into his mouth. He spat convulsively. The water stank , foul with all the detritus of the marshes and Zarash’ak combined.