The Doom of Kings: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 1

by Don Bassingthwaite

  “You haven’t been in Rhukaan Draal at night.” He shook out the cloak and thrust it at her. “Wear it or we stay here until morning. Lhesh Haruuc assigned me to protect you. I will not fail him.”

  Grimacing, she took the cloak and threw it around her shoulders. Aruget had been right—it didn’t smell as bad as it could have. The hobgoblin had purchased a torch as well. He lit it from another torch beside the Orien gates and they left the compound for the shadowed streets. Vounn looked around as they walked. While the streets may have been dark, they were far from abandoned. Goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears went about their business without light, as did a fair number of dwarves, elves, and shifters. A few humans and halflings were abroad as well, but most of them walked in the darkness rather than use torches or lanterns. Fixed light sources were few and far between, and unlike in the cities she knew best, they were open flame rather than cold fire.

  “You walk too proudly,” Aruget growled at her.

  “Do you want me to shuffle like a slave?” Vounn asked. “I’m being escorted by one of Haruuc’s soldiers. No moth-eaten cloak is going to hide that!”

  “If you walk with less pride, you will go unnoticed. Right now, you are attracting attention.”

  Vounn knew better than to look around, but she couldn’t help thinking of the Gan’duur attack on the road to the Gathering Stone. She slouched a little and shortened her stride. “Who’s watching?”

  “No one special,” said Aruget. “Only the usual thugs and thieves. Harmless enough if they keep their distance.”

  His hand stayed near his sword, though.

  They were almost halfway back to Haruuc’s fortress when Vounn heard the noise. At first it seemed like nothing more than a murmur, but it quickly grew into the swollen rumble of a crowd. Chanting voices. Marching feet. A high, shrill voice swirled around the noise, but Vounn couldn’t make out what it was saying. She wasn’t the only one on the street to notice the sound, though. All around them, people were looking in the direction—ahead and to the left—of the noise. Many of them looked concerned and began to vanish into buildings or away down alleys and sidestreets.

  Aruget’s ears flicked and his jaw tightened.

  “What is it?” Vounn asked him.

  “A famine march. There have been rumors among the guards that one might be taking place.”

  “What’s a famine march?”

  He looked at her. “A response to the food shortages. A rite of the Dark Six.”

  Vounn’s stomach knotted. In civilized lands, ordinary people might invoke the names of the Shadow, the Keeper, the Traveler, or the other sinister counterparts to the gods of the Sovereign Host in order to stave off misfortune. Outright worship of the dark gods was only for the cruel and the mad, though, and no matter how evil or deranged the worshippers, it was never conducted in public. There would have been an uprising.

  But if she needed another reason to remember that Darguun, for all of Haruuc’s efforts, was not yet a civilized nation, she had it. For centuries before Haruuc had forged them into a nation, the goblins had followed the Six. Popular tales of Darguun painted lurid pictures of massacres in the name of the Fury and torture in the name of the Mockery. She’d seen nothing of the sort since she’d arrived, only the rites to the Sovereign Host conducted within Khaar Mbar’ost, but apparently the faith of generations wasn’t far below the surface.

  Vounn swallowed and returned Aruget’s gaze. “What do we do?”

  “We run,” said Aruget. “We don’t want to be caught out in the open, but we might still be able to make it past the march and back to Khaar Mbar’ost.”

  Vounn lifted up the skirt of her dress. “Lead,” she said.

  They were hardly the only ones running on the street, but they were among the very few running toward the noise of the march—and they were the only ones running toward it that didn’t wear expressions of beatific anticipation. The march was drawing in new participants. Vounn ran harder and cursed her age. Aruget slowed to keep pace with her. She was grateful he didn’t just leave her behind.

  The sound of the march grew louder, words in Goblin condensing out of the chant. Devourer, leave us be! Let our sweetest offerings soothe your hunger! Devourer, pass us by!

  “They’re on the wide street ahead,” said Aruget. “We’ll be past them in just—”

  His words cut off. Vounn raised her eyes and looked ahead. The street they ran along was blocked on its other side. Carts had been drawn across it and figures stood across the makeshift barricade, watching in the direction of Khaar Mbar’ost. There was no easy way across.

  Aruget bared his teeth. “They’re trying to block Haruuc’s soldiers from interfering,” he said. “We need to go around them.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her around the corner onto the wide street—and into the path of the famine march.

  For an instant, Vounn had a glimpse of the marchers, a mob that filled the street from side to side. Some among them carried torches, and the leaping flames cast color onto the moonlight-washed crowd. Most of the marchers were hobgoblins, but there were goblins and bugbears, kobolds and crazed humans as well. At the head of the mob was a bugbear. Riding like a child on his shoulders was a wizened old goblin woman. Above her head, she held a cluster of bloody bones with their ends sharpened to points—the symbol of the Devourer, the most primal god of the Dark Six. Hers was the shrill voice Vounn had heard earlier, and it rose again.

  “Feed the Devourer! Feed his unending hunger, and we may survive!”

  Then the glimpse was gone as Aruget dragged her on down the street, fleeing before the mob. The way ahead of them was completely empty, all doors closed, all windows shuttered. Vounn waited for the mob to spot them and rush forward, howling for blood, but they didn’t. They just came on at the same constant, unstoppable pace, and Vounn wished that she had House Orien’s abilities to step across vast distances in the blink of an eye.

  “Here!” Aruget hurled the torch away and turned to one side so sharply that he wrenched her arm. Pain shot through her shoulder, but she followed his guidance and stumbled into the mouth of an alley. Stinking garbage made the footing unsteady, but the alley was narrow and she could brace herself against the walls. Aruget followed her in, pressing her back and hiding her with his body.

  “We’ll wait until they pass, then go back,” he whispered. “They’ll be heading for the Bloody Market.”

  “Why?”

  “They’ll make their sacrifice there—or try to. They may try to wreck the market too. If Haruuc is smart, he’ll have soldiers assembled to meet them before they can do any damage.” His ears flicked. “Hush!”

  The noise of the famine march was a vibration in the air and the ground. The footfalls and chants of the mob, intertwined with the shrieks of the old goblin woman, came closer, then abruptly the march was on them. Moonlight flickered on the face of the old goblin, and Vounn saw that her eyes were filmed and pale. She must have been blind. There were dark stains running down her arms, and Vounn wondered if the blood that slicked the symbol of the Devourer was her own.

  Then she was gone, and the marchers, their faces smeared with ash, were streaming past. There were children among them, looking around in confusion. A hobgoblin boy stared down the alley and his eyes met Vounn’s. She glanced away and when she looked back, the boy was gone.

  Almost all of the marchers carried baskets heaped with food. Aruget drew back his lips in a silent snarl and put his mouth close to her ear. “Dark Six cultists hold famine marches in times of shortage. They try to avoid a full-scale famine by sacrificing the best of their food to the Devourer in hopes that he’ll leave them what scraps remain. All they do is make things worse for themselves.”

  Vounn felt sick at the waste—and even more sick as the ranks of the marchers thinned briefly to reveal a dozen ragged figures, bound to one another by ropes, being forced along the street. Slaves. She pressed her lips together. Aruget nodded, confirming her unspoken fears. “The Devourer hu
ngers for meat of all kinds,” he said.

  “Are the shortages that bad already?”

  “They don’t have to be. The life of a common slave is cheap.” He looked out of the alley again as the last of the bound figures passed from view. “If there truly were famine, there would be no slaves left to sacrifice.”

  The mass of the mob had passed, the rumble of their chant fading with them. There were only stragglers on the street now, and soon they were gone as well. Aruget eased his head out of the alley, looked up and down, then took Vounn’s hand to pull her after him. She would have gone with him gladly except for the familiar voice that drifted down into the alley from above.

  “They make us look like ignorant savages,” said Tariic.

  Vounn stopped and looked up. High up on one of the walls of the alley was the dark shape of an open window. Another voice came down, “You don’t honor the Dark Six?”

  Daavn of Marhaan. Vounn had thought the warlord had left Rhukaan Draal to return to his clan’s territories. She tugged Aruget back into the alley and pointed up at the window. There was no need—his face was already turned up, his ears already high.

  “I honor them in their place,” said Tariic. “A famine march is the kind of stupidity that makes the other nations of Khorvaire look on our people as brutes.”

  “You sound like your uncle, trying to appease the humans as a famine march tries to appease the Devourer. Do you intend to leave Darguun eating stale noon and chewing dry bones?”

  “Peace and war, like the Dark Six, have their place.” There was a pause and Vounn imagined Tariic sipping wine. “My uncle favors me. He trusts me with the most sensitive of missions. I am the most obvious of heirs—a warrior of his blood, trained as a bridge between Darguun and the Five Nations. He believes I share his vision for our people.”

  “I believe you share his vision,” Daavn said.

  “I believe that now is the time to honor peace,” Tariic answered. “I came to assure you that war will have its time as well. Bide your time, Daavn. When I receive what is due to me, I want the Marhaan to stand with the Rhukaan Taash in support of me.”

  He received a grumble as an answer.

  Tariic’s voice took on a sharper edge. “Do I have the friendship of the Marhaan, Daavn?”

  “You’re not Haruuc’s heir yet, Tariic. I don’t gamble on coins beneath a bowl when the bowl may never be lifted.” Daavn seemed to hesitate, then said, “Give me a sign. You want the Marhaan to stand with you. Tell me something I want to know.”

  There was another pause, longer this time. Vounn doubted if wine was being sipped. “What?” Tariic said finally.

  “I have heard that Dagii of the Mur Talaan has ridden to the southwest, along with a number of those you brought to Khaar Mbar’ost with the Deneith envoy. One of the sharaat’khesh, a duur’kala of the Kech Volaar, a gnome, a shifter, and a human bearing a Siberys dragonmark. A strange group of people. My instincts tell me that something is going on. What are they doing?”

  “Why do you want to know?” asked Tariic. “The southwest is a long way from Marhaan territory.”

  “I ask as a warlord of Darguun—and as someone you want as your friend. Does such a group ride our nation on their own accord?”

  Tariic paused again, then said, “They ride at Lhesh Haruuc’s command.”

  “But you know why he sent them out? Does it have something to do with House Deneith?”

  “I’m saying nothing more.”

  “When do they return?”

  Tariic laughed at that question. “I can’t tell you what no one knows, Daavn. Not even Haruuc is certain when they’ll come back. Now you tell me—will the Marhaan stand with me? I want an answer.”

  Daavn answered with sincerity. “You have given me the sign I asked for. When you are heir, Tariic of Rhukaan Taash, the Marhaan will stand with you. By the honor of my clan, I swear it.”

  There was the sound of metal touching metal. Vounn guessed that the two men had crossed their knives, the goblin tradition for sealing an oath. “I must go,” said Tariic. “The famine march will have stirred things up. I’d counted on my uncle not noticing my absence tonight from Khaar Mbar’ost, but he’ll probably be looking for me.”

  “Tell him you were caught in the city by the march,” Daavn suggested. “It’s the truth.”

  “It is at that. Swift travel back to your territory, my friend.”

  “Great glory, Tariic.”

  Aruget touched Vounn’s arm and she made out his gesture as he pointed to the street. She nodded. If they wanted to avoid encountering Tariic on the street, they needed to go. They slipped out of the alley and ran as swiftly as she could manage. The moonlight gave just enough light for her to see where she was going and that the street was still empty. There were sounds of violent confrontation in the distance. The famine marchers had encountered Haruuc’s soldiers.

  As they reached the street that led to Khaar Mbar’ost, Vounn glanced back. Tariic was only just emerging from the house beside the alley. They would return to the fortress ahead of him. She slowed gratefully to a brisk walk.

  “What we heard tonight,” said Aruget, “was not treason. Tariic did not act or plot against the lhesh.”

  “He didn’t,” Vounn agreed. She couldn’t help thinking of what Haruuc had told her in Khaar Mbar’ost’s hall of honor: “Tariic understands muut, but he is drawn to atcha.”

  Aruget’s head turned in the moonlight and he looked at her. “Still, I feel Tariic would not appreciate that we know these things. We will have this secret between us, lady?”

  She thought for a moment before answering. Aruget saw secrets. She saw diplomacy—and the essence of diplomacy was using what people wanted to get what you needed. Tariic had wanted atcha and the future support of the Marhaan. Why had Daavn needed to know about Haruuc’s quest?

  Vounn pressed her lips together, then looked back at the hobgoblin. “We will, Aruget,” she said. “Just between us.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  As he charged back through the trees, Geth heard Ekhaas, Ashi, and Dagii beating their way into the hedge of thorns at the edge of the forest. The dust-blind trolls heard, too, and turned their ugly heads toward the sound, screaming their frustration.

  At Geth’s heels, Midian said, “You’re insane.”

  “I’m beginning to think that myself.” Geth reached inside himself and shifted once more, feeling the rush of invulnerability that was his heritage flood his body. He tightened his grip on Wrath and the sword pulsed in his hand. If nothing else, he thought, he was going to die like a hero.

  Then they were on the trolls. Intent on their escaping prey, the monsters didn’t notice them until it was too late. Geth roared and hit the first troll in his path, trying to inflict the most damage he could, striking not to kill but to disable. Wrath sheared through its hip. The creature toppled over as its leg collapsed, but the wound was already closing. Geth didn’t stop. He moved on to the next troll. A swing took off its hand. The follow-through severed its knee from behind. The troll, still blind from Ekhaas’s spell, squealed and groped for the limbs as it went down. Geth kicked them out of its reach.

  Midian, joined by Chetiin, was also striking for knees. The gnome’s pick shattered bone, and a twist of the weapon ruined the joint. The damage was temporary, but it brought trolls low while quick work with Chetiin’s curved dagger opened horrific wounds at critical points that would take longer to heal. In only moments, they had taken down four trolls. Geth turned to the last of the trolls—and was met with dark eyes clear of Ekhaas’s magical dust. A wide hand lashed out.

  The troll’s talons gouged his shifting-toughened skin but didn’t break through. If they had, Geth might have been staring at his own guts as they spilled across the ground. The blow was still powerful, though. It threw Geth off his feet and slammed him hard into the trunk of a tree. Shadows swirled across Geth’s vision, but he blinked them back and pushed himself up again, Wrath ready to meet the
troll’s charge.

  It didn’t come. Hooting at the downed trolls as if in command, the creature turned and ran after Ekhaas and the others. The troll Geth had slashed across the hip rose and went with it, its lurching gait smoothing out with every stride. They disappeared into the brambles, heedless of the thorns that tore at their rubbery hides. The remaining trolls, free from the blinding magic, glared at their attackers and let loose a flurry of howls. Half-healed joints popped as they moved. Half-healed limbs clawed at them. Geth slapped aside a soft, raw hand with his gauntlet and whirled Wrath in a short arc that carved a gash in a troll’s torso, then jumped away before the monster could attack again.

  Chetiin and Midian ran to his side. “Two between us and the others,” said Chetiin as the trolls tried to crawl toward them. “Three here.”

  “We can take them down again,” said Geth.

  Midian cursed. “Enough fighting, big man! Learn from a gnome!” He dug into a side pocket of his pack, pulled something out, and ordered, “Look away!”

  Geth caught a glimpse of two tiny objects as Midian hurled them at the clustered trolls, then he quickly obeyed the gnome’s orders. And was glad he had as two intense flashes of light erupted with muffled bangs and new shrieks from the trolls. Blind again, they staggered back.

  “Now run,” said Midian. “That way—as quiet as possible!”

  He pointed not in the direction Ekhaas and the others had gone, but along the forest edge toward a tall and sturdy tree. Geth would have hesitated—the trolls were vulnerable again—but Chetiin grabbed him and pushed him toward the tree. They sprinted for it, Geth making the most noise of any of them, and even that the barest whisper. Midian ran like a rabbit and Chetiin like a shadow. The trolls were still howling, covering up any sound their quarry made. Midian flicked something else back along their trail. Geth heard a soggy splat and caught a whiff of a terrible, pungent odor. The trolls, caught in whatever Midian had thrown, moaned as if angry skunks had been thrust under their noses.

  They reached the tree while the trolls were still reeling under the effects of the lights and the stink. Chetiin scrambled up it faster than Geth would have thought possible, seeming to run right up the trunk. Geth paused to give Midian a boost, then sheathed Wrath and pulled himself up. A shifter’s heavy nails weren’t sharp enough to be much use in a fight, but they dug into bark easily enough. In only moments, even with one hand encased in his gauntlet, he had reached the lowest branches.