The Binding Stone (The Dragon Below, Book 1) (2 page)

T
he golden light of late afternoon filled the little valley like honey. Insects flashed as they drifted through the still air, lazy now that midsummer's fierce heat had passed from the far west of the Eldeen Reaches. There was a spot Geth knew of, up high on the valley's northern slope, where a slab of bare rock thrust out from the trees. On an afternoon like this, there was nowhere better to lie out and bask in the sun, alone with the sky, the forest, and the stone.

On another afternoon, the shifter thought, but not today. He shook thick, sweat-damp brown hair out of his eyes and growled between sharp teeth, "They're toying with us, Adolan. Three times back and forth across the valley. Are they going to run us all the way to the Shadowcrags?"

Well-worn leather leggings whispered as Adolan paused and looked back along the valley's length. His nose, sharp and pointed as human noses tended to be, crinkled. "If we take a straight path, it's not so far back to Bull Hollow."

Geth stared at his friend, then blinked wide amber eyes. "You'd see the Ring of Siberys in a mud puddle," he grumbled in annoyance.

Adolan's smile broke through his red-brown beard. "What's the matter, Geth?" he asked. "Can't enjoy your fleas when someone's scratching you?"

Geth paused in the act of reaching to scratch at the thick sideburns that grew down a shifter's jaw line. Another low growl rolled up out of his throat. The heavy hair on the back of his neck and on his forearms rose and his lips pulled away from his teeth. "If one of my fleas ever bit your thin skin, Ado, we'd need a needle and thread to sew up the wound!"

"Then it's good thing they like your furry hide better, isn't it?"

"Small-eye human."

"Furball shifter." Adolan held out a flat packet. "Jerky?"

"Tak." Geth plucked a strip of the dried meat from the druid's packet with thick, heavy-nailed fingers. He stuck it in his mouth and sucked at the smoky saltiness for a moment, then said around the meat, "They are toying with us, though."

"They're too bold," Adolan said as he took a piece of jerky for himself. "We're closer to them than they think. We'll catch them soon."

The tall human slid the jerky into his mouth and started walking again, eyes scanning the ground for signs of their quarry. Geth followed him at an easy, loping gait. "Do you think they'll talk?" he asked. "I hate it when they talk."

Adolan's only answer was the slow grind of flat teeth on jerky. Geth snapped at his jerky twice. Sharp teeth tore the hard meat into slivers. "More?" he grunted.

Adolan tossed him the packet.

"There's something in the woods," Sandar had said when he dropped by their cabin that morning. The man who owned the last inn in the Eldeen had somehow appointed himself the mouthpiece of Bull Hollow's elders.

"There are a lot of things in the woods, Sandar," Geth had told him with his usual bluntness.

Blunt words rolled off Sandar like water. "A lot of things," the elder had replied, "don't come prowling around people's farms."

Adolan had stepped in, as he so often did, before things deteriorated too far. "Bull Hollow doesn't have any shortage of hunters, Sandar," he had pointed out.

Sandar had crossed his hands over his belly. "Bull Hollow only has two hunters who can take on whatever dragged Ellio Tuck's biggest breeding sow out of her pen and carried her off toward the high valleys."

Geth and Adolan had been on the trail by mid-morning.

Fortunately, their quarry had been easy to track--and to identify. Two trails of massive cat-like paws traced around Tuck's farm, led to the remains of an enormous sow in the woods, and continued on up into the higher reaches of the forest. Two trails, but with six paws to each trail. Deep scratches had been torn in the wood of the sow's pen and high on tree trunks along the trail, all without any of the twelve paws leaving the ground. Only displacer beasts--six legs and a pair of barbed tentacles sprouting from the shoulders--left spoor like that.

Not even Adolan could argue that the beasts might be passing through on their way to new hunting ground.
Everywhere
was a displacer beast's hunting ground. The monsters were dumb enough to hunt anything they came across--and just smart enough to get away with it.

An uneasy thought made the hair on Geth's arms and neck stand up again. How long had the beasts known they were being followed? Had they been toying with their pursuers even before they reached the valley?

Had the beasts led him and Adolan here deliberately?

The beasts' trail turned back down toward the valley floor. Geth scanned the valley through gaps in the trees. The valley was uninhabited, so no chance of allies. Lots of crags and displaced boulders. Steep sides. A narrow lower mouth that was easily guarded, an upland slope that was steep and more easily descended than climbed. A good place for an ambush.

Suddenly the gentle gold of afternoon light seemed harsh and the lazy hum of insects an annoying drone. "Ado," Geth said, "I think the beasts are trying to turn the hunt on us."

"I know," Adolan answered, "but don't worry." He twitched his head toward the sky. "Breek is watching over us."

Geth glanced up. High above, the black dot of an eagle skimmed against bright blue. Adolan's half-wild bird was on
guard. He let out a grunt of relief. Breek's eyes would spot any tricks the displacer beasts might try. Even so, his hands went to his belt and touched the paired, short-hafted axes that hung on either side of his waist.

"How far ahead of us do you think they are?" he asked.