Song of the Dragon by Tracy Hickman

Author:Tracy Hickman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2011-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

Qinsei and Phang, with quick and silent footfalls, outdistanced their squabbling quarry with little trouble. Qinsei followed the left bank with Phang on the right. They had worked together often down the uncounted years, and this part of their job had become a matter of routine. Their target was in sight—all that remained was to answer the questions of where and when the trap would be sprung.

Wordlessly, the two Codexia closed again on the river. Their prey was now behind them, coming in their direction. They remained on the high ground of the steep, sheer banks, following its curves and undulations farther, Qinsei thought, than she would have preferred. But it was Soen who was their Inquisitor, and Qinsei wanted to find the perfect place for them to bring this sorry business to its inevitable close.

“Ah,” Qinsei sighed with satisfaction as she stopped at the crest of the bank where the river turned sharply. “Soen will be pleased.”

It was a steep banked bowl surrounding a pool at the base of a waterfall. The river had cut a narrow passage that was the only way in or out. It would be slow climbing out of such a bowl. Qinsei saw it all in her mind: their prey walking into the bowl, Soen and Jukung closing off their only escape out of it, while she and Phang stood atop the edge of the bowl, capturing them all before their prey was even aware they were caught.

Qinsei reached over next to her. She grabbed a branch and deftly twisted it back, locking it among the other branches in an awkward bend. The sign set, she looked across the ravine to Phang and made hand signs to him as to her instructions. He responded silently with signs of his own that he would do as she suggested, circle the top of the bowl to the northern quarter and prepare to spring the trap.

Qinsei moved around the southern edge of the bowl. All that was left for them to do would be to wait until . . .

Sobbing.

Qinsei froze at once, her Matei staff readied.

She could hear quiet sobbing just through the trees to the south.

Qinsei frowned. It would not do to have someone unknown at her back. She stepped cautiously through the trees, weaving a careful path to be as silent and unseen as possible. She halted at the tree line, her breath carefully slow and her black eyes dappled by the afternoon light through the shifting leaves of the trees.

A long clearing ran up a slope between the trees on either side. The clearing itself remained in the shadow of the surrounding trees under a bright sky. Qinsei waited patiently for a moment, her eyes searching the trees and the tall grasses for a time before her gaze fixed on the small head whose back was turned toward her just past the crest of the hillside meadow.

A child—an elven child sat at the crest of the hill weeping in this lost and forsaken wilderness.

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