The Grieving Tree: The Dragon Below by Don Bassingthwaite

Author:Don Bassingthwaite
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Epic, Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780786956647
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2010-04-21T03:05:47+00:00

They made camp for the night alongside the road. Robrand ordered his pavilion erected and invited Singe and the others to stay with him and to share his evening meal. Natrac and Orshok—pale with worry that something had gone wrong—were summoned up the column and were astounded to find the others settling down with an old friend. Robrand greeted them and Ashi with all the aristocratic charm that Singe remembered from years before. The old man even reintroduced himself to Dandra, apologizing for his deception.

Chuut and the other ogres, meanwhile, seemed more confused by the sudden change in the status of the General’s guests than by Robrand’s shedding of his disguise. Robrand chuckled when Singe pointed it out. “They knew I was disguising myself. Do you think I normally run around faking crippling injuries?” His wrinkled, weathered face twisted and he rubbed at the leg he had been holding stiff. “Because I wouldn’t. It’s not very comfortable.”

Singe reached across the blanket on the ground that served as a dining table for their group—Robrand had a small folding table, but it would hardly seat seven people—and helped himself to an apple. The food eaten by the General was simple, but still significantly better than the rations they had been supplied with. Not that Singe wouldn’t have eaten pig slop so long as it meant he was eating with Robrand again—except that they could have been eating together much sooner. He looked back to Robrand. “Then why disguise yourself at all, old man?” he asked. “You knew it was us.”

Robrand grimaced again and eased back. “How long has it been since we saw each other, Etan?”

Natrac’s eyebrows rose. “Etan?”

The wizard took a crunching bite out of his apple. “Singe, Robrand,” he mumbled, then swallowed and added, “And it’s been almost five years since I even had a letter from you.”

“Exactly,” said Robrand. “Five years and a lot has happened in the world.” He sighed. “The war changed people, Etan. People I thought I could trust.”

His words had a bitter edge. Singe paused in the act of the biting into his apple again and looked up. Robrand’s gaze had drifted to a far corner of the blanket. To Geth.

The shifter’s eyes were down, his posture huddled. He did little more than pick uncomfortably at his food. Singe realized that he wasn’t the only one to notice the tension between Geth and Robrand. Dandra and Natrac were both watching him and the old man as well. Since they had unmasked the General, Geth had been silent and withdrawn. If he could have, Singe guessed, he would have fled.

A part of the wizard wished that he would. Another part wanted him to stay and squirm before Robrand, the man whose life he had destroyed in Narath.

A third part reminded him of what he and Geth had accomplished since their ill-fated reunion in Bull Hollow. Until their argument in Bava’s studio, he’d been close to forgiving the shifter. One look at Robrand’s face, however, silenced any questions of forgiveness.

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