“I didn’t hire an assassin!” Geth growled.
“I’m not saying you did. Or that Ashi did.” She looked to Dagii. “Or you.”
“I didn’t know about the danger of the rod until after Haruuc was dead,” Dagii said stiffly.
“No, but I know you.” Ekhaas’s ears rose and flicked. “When you returned with Keraal as your prisoner, you were as dirty as a farmhand and your hands were blistered because you had insisted on binding the Gan’duur warriors into the grieving trees along the road yourself. You took responsibility for their deaths. Someone with such muut wouldn’t hire an assassin to kill his lhesh.”
Geth thought he saw something pass between them, a meeting of amber and gray eyes, then Dagii lowered his head in acknowledgement and Ekhaas turned back to him and Chetiin.
“None of that proves Midian is the one behind it, only that he wasn’t there,” she said. “Haruuc had enemies—any one of them could have hired an assassin. But the false Chetiin knew the words of our pledge. Midian has to be our suspect.”
Only if Chetiin is telling the truth, whispered a voice inside Geth. He swallowed it, sending it down into the cold feeling that swirled in his gut. He remembered how pale Midian had been when they had told him about the danger of the rod. If Geth had just realized he’d made a horrible mistake, surely he would have reacted in the same way. “It still leaves us with the question of why he would do it,” he said, “and why he wouldn’t have come to the rest of us before hiring an assassin.”
“For any and all of the reasons we guessed Chetiin might have done it,” said Ekhaas. “We’ve got Midian. Do we confront him?”
“No,” Chetiin said quietly. The goblin elder rose from his crouch. “Solve the problem of the rod first. When Haruuc’s heir is lhesh with the false rod in his hand and the true rod has been dealt with, then we confront Midian.”
“You think he’d betray us.”
“I’m not certain what to think, but I know that accusing him of orchestrating the murder of Haruuc will not go well right now. We can’t involve other people without revealing the secret of the rod. We need to deal with one problem before we move onto the next. You’re close to getting the true rod away. Will rushing to confront Midian change anything?”
Ekhaas flicked her ears. “No. I don’t think we should tell him any more than he needs to know though. We’ve already promised Tenquis we wouldn’t reveal his identity. We should keep our meeting with you a secret, too.”
“It’s better if no one knows you’ve seen me,” said Chetiin. “Not even Ashi—the more people who know, the more people who could give me away. There’s someone out there who believes I’m dead. We should let them continue to believe it. If it’s Midian, Ashi’s trust will hide our suspicion. I’ll listen for rumors of the shaarat’khesh who performed the assassination. We may be able to learn something more.” He nodded to the east. “Dawn is almost here. You should return to Khaar Mbar’ost.”
“What if we need to talk to you again?” asked Dagii. “How do we contact you?”
“Hang something from your window in Khaar Mbar’ost. I’ll come to you.” He smiled. “I’m pleased that we were able to speak. It’s good to know I can trust you.”
Suspicion seethed in Geth’s belly. He struggled to keep it from his face as Chetiin vaulted up onto a charred beam that slanted down into the ruins from a broken roofline. They lost sight of him among the shadows for a moment—a moment that stretched out longer and longer until they all realized he had gone.
Their own return through Rhukaan Draal was quiet. There were a few more people moving on the streets now, though they were still able to pass without attracting notice. The chill sense of suspicion was still with Geth as they paused a short distance from Rhukaan Draal. “I’ll catch the attention of the guards at the gates,” said Dagii. “You two go in. There will be other people arriving at Khaar Mbar’ost now. Once we’re inside, there’s no way to avoid being seen at this time of day, but there also won’t be anything unusual in us moving around.”
“How do I get past the guards outside my chamber?”
“Just walk in,” Ekhaas said with a smile. “It’s your chamber. They’ll think you’re already inside and they’ll be too surprised and embarrassed to say later that you weren’t.”
Geth made a face. “That sounds too easy.”
It was. They turned a corner and came into sight of the gates of Khaar Mbar’ost. Instead of only a few people passing into a fortress still stirring in the early morning, the gates were a rush of messengers, warriors, and warlords.
“Rat,” said Geth.
“Khaavolaar,” said Ekhaas.
“Something has happened,” said Dagii grimly.
“What do we do?” Geth looked at the two hobgoblins, who looked at each other. Ekhaas’s ears bent forward.
“Keep going,” she said. “We may be able to slip through in the chaos. We’ll find out what’s going on once we’re inside.”
The guards at the gate, however, were alert. Even as they approached, trying to move causally in the wake of a warlord’s entourage, one of the guards straightened and shouted, “He’s here! Send the message—he’s here!”
Instantly, Geth was the center of attention as guards came pouring out into the courtyard of the fortress. For a moment, he feared that they were there to arrest him, but then he realized that they were forming up as an honor guard. He shoved the bundle containing the Rod of Kings at Ekhaas. They couldn’t be found with it. “Get that away! Get it back to my chamber.”
She nodded and melted away into the moving crowd. Dagii stayed by Geth’s side. A moment later, Munta and Tariic appeared. “Maabet!” cursed Munta. “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you.”
“I wanted to see the celebrations that took place at night after the games ended,” Geth said. “I wanted to go without anyone knowing who I was.”
Munta blinked. “Rhukaan Draal? At night? With only Dagii for protection?”
“He’s not entirely helpless, Munta,” Dagii said. “What’s going on?”
“You picked a bad night to go out.” Tariic’s voice was dark. “A messenger falcon arrived in Khaar Mbar’ost during the third watch. It was carrying word from the village of Zarrthec. Villages and clanholds to the east have been attacked by raiders.”
Dagii’s ears rose sharply. “Someone sympathetic to the Gan’duur?”
Tariic shook his head. “Valenar.” He fixed his gaze on Geth. “The war that you said wouldn’t happen is here.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
21 Sypheros
The throne room had been pressed into use for the first time since Haruuc’s death. Leaning forward from the viewing gallery above, Ashi could still see the stain of the lhesh’s blood on the dais. A dar tradition, like leaving the death wound visible. As long as the stain remained, people would remember that a great leader had died on that spot.
The white bulk of the Dhakaani grieving tree still stood to the side of the dais as well, blocking one of the tall windows behind the throne. The tree made a sinister presence, but the carved stone limbs were harmless now. The words that commanded them had died with Haruuc. No one had tried to dismantle and remove the tree, though. Maybe Haruuc had been the only one who knew that secret, too.
Noise filled the rest of the throne room and the gallery. The assembly of warlords gathered in the throne room beneath walls lined with tall statues of fierce hobgoblin warriors and banners carrying clan crests. Exiled to the gallery were all those who had no place among the warlords and clan chiefs: ambassadors and envoys from the other nations of Khorvaire, the dragonmarked houses, and those clans like the Kech Volaar that dwelled in Darguun but had not sworn allegiance to Haruuc. Today the gallery was more crowded than the throne room. Everyone was in attendance. Word of the messenger falcon’s arrival during the night, and of the news it carried, had spread quickly.
Geth sat at the head of everything on Haruuc’s blocky throne, the Rod of Kin
gs in his hand. Ashi might have expected Dagii or Munta to stand with him, but they were on the floor among the other warlords. Instead, the four contending heirs stood around Geth—Tariic and Garaad to his right, Aguus and Iizan to his left. The heirs took turns glaring at each other and nodding to supporters among the assembly. Geth just looked uncomfortable and exhausted. Ashi felt for him. All of his insistences that there would be no war had collapsed under him. She wondered if he had really believed what he was saying.
“I’ve heard that when the falcon arrived last night, they couldn’t find Geth and when they finally did, he was returning from the city with Dagii at dawn.” Esmyssa Entar ir’Korran, the ambassador of Zilargo, raised herself up a little to speak in Ashi’s ear. Normally the gnome sat on a cushion that lifted her up on chairs made for larger beings. There was no room for a servant to get through the crowd with a cushion today. In fact, only Esmyssa’s small size had enabled her to squeeze through and claim the seat. Pale blue eyes flashed. “I wonder where he was.”
The comment was so probing she might as well have asked the question outright. “I don’t know,” said Ashi. It was no lie for a change, though she could guess at where Geth had been. As she had Vounn had made their way to their seats, Ashi had caught a glimpse of Ekhaas standing with Senen Dhakaan. The duur’kala looked just as tired as Geth. Ashi wondered if that meant they had found an artificer to create a false rod.
That at least would be welcome news. A war was bad, but the danger of the Rod of Kings was potentially even greater.
The blunt rebuff brought a flicker of disappointment to Esmyssa’s eyes, but it didn’t silence her. She looked back to the dais. “This business of a shava and four heirs is messy. The sooner the Darguuls have a lhesh again, the better. It’s so much easier to deal with one stable leader. With four possible lheshes, it’s hard to know where you stand—”
“Isn’t Zilargo ruled by three leaders?” Ashi asked, trying to head off the inevitable question of who she thought might stand closest to the throne.
“The Triumvirate speaks with a single voice backed by the wisdom of three minds working in concert,” Esmyssa said proudly. “Haruuc’s heirs struggle against each other. And the assembly of warlords …” She made a dismissive, if quiet, noise. “Without a strong, thoughtful lhesh to lead them, Darguun’s clans are a danger as much to themselves as the rest of Khorvaire. If this was Zilargo, we wouldn’t be facing the possibility of a war.”
The Zil ambassador was right about Darguun’s clans, of course, but her self-righteous arrogance was like a dull blade dragged across Ashi’s skin. “And what would Zilargo do if Valenar elves were raiding its borders?”
“Negotiate,” said Esmyssa. “Emissaries of the Triumvirate would be sent to talk to them and find a solution before conflict arises. Words are the armies of Zilargo.”
Ashi’s teeth ground together. “Razh toch tao gi,” she said in the language she had spoken growing up among the barbarian clans of the Shadow Marches. “A sword has no ears.”
Esmyssa’s smile tightened as well. “Pithy,” she said, and turned away to speak to the Brelish ambassador. Ashi turned as well, righteous anger warm in her belly. Vounn was seated on her other side with Pater d’Orien beyond her and the two dragonmarked envoys were having a much more practical discussion.
“—content of the message directly from Tariic,” Vounn was saying. “It only mentioned two clanholds by name: Tii’ator and Ketkeet. Both small and not too far from Zarrthec. The messages the falcons can carry are short by necessity.”
Pater grunted and scratched under the collar that stretched tight around his thick neck. “I know something of that part of the country,” he said. “Orien wagons make a market circuit there. Settlements east of Zarrthec are sparse. The land can be good and a fair amount of it was cleared by Cyre before the founding of Darguun, but go too far east and you get uncomfortably close to the Mournland.”
Vounn pressed her lips together. Ashi thought she could guess what her mentor was thinking. What had remained of the human nation of Cyre after Darguun and Valenar had seized their pieces of it had been consumed in the massive catastrophe that had come to be known as the Mourning. The terrible event had happened only five years before, but already mention of it evoked a legendary dread in most people. All that was left of Cyre was a cursed wasteland inhabited by dangerous monsters and surrounded by borders of dead-gray mist. The Mournland was a blight on central Khorvaire, and by unfortunate coincidence Darguun shared the longest border of any nation with it, from the long inlet of Kraken Bay that became the mouth of the Ghaal River all the way to the spur of mountains marking the northern boundary with Breland. It also formed a deadly barrier hundred of miles wide between Valenar and Darguun. If Valenar elves were raiding in Darguun, they had either managed to cross the Mournland—not entirely impossible for a people with a reputation for almost supernatural horsemanship—or they had slipped unnoticed up the inlet of Kraken Bay to the mouth of the Ghaal.
The same thing must have occurred to Pater. “There’s a town—Rheklor—that stands on a peninsula with Kraken Bay on both sides. Haruuc placed a garrison there. They watch all ships traveling inland from the ocean. They would have seen anything unusual.”
“Perhaps.” Vounn glanced at Ashi, then dropped her voice so that only the three of them could hear. “Have either of you seen Sindra this morning?”
Ashi raised her head and looked around the gallery. From where she was sitting, there was no sign of the viceroy of House Lyrandar, but Sindra could easily have been lost in the crowd. “No,” she said, “but—”
Pater’s face had turned red. “There are no Lyrandar ships at the Rhukaan Draal docks right now!” he said. “I noticed that yesterday.”
Vounn raised an eyebrow. Pater turned a deeper shade of red.
“Lyrandar wouldn’t aid Valenar against Darguun, would they?” Ashi asked. “They’ll have to come back to Rhukaan Draal to do business.”
“I think Sindra would try to claim her absence was just a coincidence,” said Vounn. “But it strikes me as a very fortunate coincidence when she might otherwise have to answer some awkward questions. Lyrandar ships travel up the Ghaal all the time without attracting attention. Ships for the Lhazaar Principalities are common, too—but the Lhazaars haven’t built ties with Valenar the way that House Lyrandar has.”
“Khyberit gentis,” muttered Ashi. “Do we tell—?”
“No,” Vounn said with a quick shake of her head. “We can’t be seen to inform on another house. The Darguuls will figure it out on their own—if they haven’t already. They can investigate if they want to.” She pursed her lips. “But if Lyrandar is already involved in the conflict, then we should be too.”
The color in Pater’s face broke and Ashi realized he hadn’t been holding in anger but a huge, greedy grin. “By Kol Korran’s golden bath,” he said, his cheeks jiggling with the effort of keeping a straight face. “I’ve missed war!”
Ashi stared at them both, but before she could say anything, there was movement down below. A lean old hobgoblin spoke to Geth, then moved to a tall pole on the floor below the dais. Two young hobgoblin warriors stood beside the pole and at a nod from the older hobgoblin, they attached a black banner to ropes hanging from the pole’s top and raised it. The warlords and clan chiefs fell silent and turned their attention to the dais. A second banner was raised, this one bearing the sword and crown symbol that had been Haruuc’s crest. Geth stood.
“A message has been received by messenger falcon,” he said in his heavily accented Goblin. “This is that message.” He produced a piece of paper too large and stiff to have been carried by one of the hobgoblin-trained falcons. Someone must have translated the original Goblin runes for him and coached him in reading it. “To Khaar Mbar’ost,” he read. “A runner from Ketkeet clanhold has arrived in Zarrthec. Valenar raiders have struck at Tii’ator, are advancing on Ketkeet, and are believed to have struck at more locations. Survivors of Tii’ator seeking
refuge at Ketkeet report seeing smoke in the direction of other clan- and farmholds. Other runners and falcons sent by Tii’ator and Ketkeet have not arrived. I believe they have been brought down by Valenar. Zarrthec stands to defend itself.”
Geth looked up. “It is signed by the chib of Zarrthec and dated the evening of 20 Sypheros. Yesterday.”
Words of anger and frustration swelled from the warlords, but the old hobgoblin by the pole rapped a staff against the floor. “Respect the order of assembly! The shava of Haruuc continues.”
When silence had returned, Geth looked back at his paper. “Two other falcons have since arrived. One comes from Baar Kai clanhold, along the border of the Mournland south of the ruins of Lyrenton. The message it carried reads only, ‘Baar Kai falls. Elves burn our fields and kill all who stand against them.’” He hesitated, then said, “The third message was written in Elven.”
The room erupted in outrage. Ashi saw those ambassadors and envoys with elf blood—the half-elf viceroy of House Medani, the entertainer who served as the spokesperson for House Thurani in Rhukaan Draal, an aide to the Aundairian ambassador—sitting in the gallery flinch at the anger below. The old hobgoblin slammed his staff down and called for order repeatedly. Geth shouted for calm in Haruuc’s name. There was no response until Tariic’s voice rang over the chaos. “Darguuls! We give victory to our enemy if there is not order!”
And the warlords listened to him. Many took their seats again, dragging more boisterous neighbors with them. “He sounds like his uncle,” murmured Pater.
“The warlords who responded are all in his camp,” said Ashi. “Daavn was one of the first to sit.”
Vounn glanced at her and nodded at the observation. They weren’t the only ones to notice. Garaad, Aguus, and Iizan glared at Tariic, but the new lord of the Rhukaan Taash had already nodded to Geth. The shifter drew a breath and read from his paper.
“The Valaes Tairn”—Ashi recognized the Valenar elves’ name for themselves—“manswer the challenge of Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor. If the blades of Darguun would fall on Valenar, Darguuls must face the warband of Kaelan Vaerian! Kaelan Vaerian will defeat all who come against her!”
Word of Traitors: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 2 Page 11
