The tyranny of ghosts tlod-3 Read online

  Ekhaas looked down the path ahead. She recognized the war chariot, too, but they hadn’t seen it from that angle before. She looked right, then left, then glanced at Geth. He shook his head.

  “Go with your gut,” he said.

  She turned and plunged down the path on the left. She heard Tenquis curse behind her. “That’s not the way!”

  “It is!” Ekhaas snapped, then jumped back as another ghost came drifting out from behind a tall plinth, its song already merged with the others. Ekhaas heard Geth cry out, but the spirit swept down on her faster than she could move. A song swelled in her throat, and she sang back at it, wiping it away.

  The chorus of ghosts swelled in response.

  “I told you, not that way!” Tenquis started down the center path past the war chariot.

  “There are ghosts everywhere, Tenquis,” said Geth. He grabbed for the tiefling’s arm, dragging him to a stop. “We need to follow Ekhaas’s lead.”

  “And where has that gotten us? We’re lost!”

  Doubt whirled in Ekhaas’s head. Was she heading the right way? Maybe Tenquis was right. The song of the ghosts went all the way through her, making it harder to think. The voices of her friends were almost drowned out by it.

  Almost but not quite. “You’re both wrong,” Chetiin said harshly. “Blood of the clans, I don’t know why I bother with you clumsy, stupid tallfolk.”

  For a moment, his words wiped away the song of the ghosts. Ekhaas turned to stare at her friends. She’d never heard Chetiin speak that way. Even if she suspected that was sometimes the way that the shaarat’khesh felt, she knew that he was too tightly disciplined to permit those feelings to show. Something was wrong. Geth and Tenquis had never argued like this before. And when had she ever felt such crippling doubt?

  The song of the ghosts had changed, she realized abruptly. The spirits weren’t just mindless apparitions bent on punishment. There was a cunning about them. Earlier the ghosts had hit them with waves of despair and shame. That had failed so their attack had become more insidious, planting doubt and mistrust, turning them against each other.

  Ekhaas drew two slow breaths, calming herself and shutting out the argument among Geth, Tenquis, and Chetiin. She listened to the song, trying to grasp the harmonies of it, the rise and the fall. Then she drew a third breath and sang.

  The effort brought a fire to her chest. Her throat burned, but she forced herself to sing anyway. She didn’t waste energy pouring strength and volume into the song-this wasn’t a battle that would be won quickly. The ghosts had changed their tactics. She needed to change hers as well. She made her song bright and cheerful, a reminder of unity and hope. They would escape. The ghosts would not stop them.

  Doubt fell away almost immediately, like a heavy pack stripped from her shoulders. She straightened, turned to the others, and extended her magic over them. The release from the ghosts’ song was visible in their faces. Geth and Tenquis blinked and looked at each other in surprise, as if their fight had been something happening to other people. Chetiin’s face tightened, expression wiped away, and Ekhaas could guess the shame he felt for what he’d said. She reached out to all three, gesturing urgently for them to follow her. Without the influence of the ghosts misleading her, she was certain that she’d chosen the correct path-and she had an uncomfortable feeling that the ghosts knew it too. Their song rose, clawing at the defenses she’d raised.

  She denied them. It took all of her concentration to sing as she walked. Geth moved up to walk beside her, Wrath gripped tight in his hand, his eyes alert. Ekhaas didn’t look back to see what Chetiin and Tenquis were doing, but she could feel them close behind. She could see the ghostly duur’kala all around them, though. They drifted among the artifacts of the vault, hollow eyes upon her. Some of them whispered between the notes of their song.

  Defiler. Thief. Traitor.

  She could block the magic of their song, but it was harder to ignore the simple malignance of their words. She poured herself into her own song, reminding herself of why she was doing this and for whom, but the fate of Darguun and vengeance against Tariic seemed like distant things. Even if Tariic was defeated and Darguun saved, the Kech Volaar would not take her back. She would be alone.

  No. A face rose in her mind-a gray-haired, gray-eyed young warlord who called her “wolf woman” and who shared his honor with her. She wouldn’t be alone because she would have Dagii.

  A ghost hissed with sudden rage and lunged at her. Geth intercepted it, lashing out with Wrath. The wisp of a shroud fell to the ground and faded away.

  Ekhaas kept walking and singing. She could feel sweat cold on her forehead and through her hair. Where were the stairs?

  Then she spotted the nightmare figure of the stuffed dolgaunt and felt a moment of hope. Beyond the creature’s unmoving tentacles stood the strange armor of stone and crystal. Beyond that, the monument to Jhazaal Dhakaan. And beyond that…

  A line of ghostly duur’kala, spectral flesh even more decayed than that of the ghosts who harried them. The dark arch of the stairs leading up out of the vaults pierced the wall just behind the silent ghosts, but it might has well have been leagues away. There was an air of tremendous age about the spirits, and Ekhaas knew, somewhere deep in her gut, that in life these duur’kala had been among the first to store their secrets in the vaults, had been the first to dwell in Volaar Draal, had perhaps been the first to call themselves Kech Volaar.

  And they hadn’t yet joined in the chorus of their sisters.

  Geth saw them too. “Tiger’s blood,” he murmured. He turned and looked behind them. “They’re all around us, Ekhaas.”

  One of the ancient duur’kala raised a withered hand.

  The chorus of the ghosts ended. For a moment, Ekhaas sang alone in the dark, her song thin in the sudden silence. The ancient duur’kala stepped forward. Ekhaas braced herself for their song, her own trailing off into a whisper. Geth raised Wrath, ready to attack. In unison, the old ghosts opened their mouths — and instead of singing, they drew breath.

  It was like being caught in a gale that pulled at her rather than pushed. Ekhaas felt the air sucked right out her lungs. She choked and struggled to catch her breath, but there was no air to breathe-it rushed past her into the gaping mouths and bottomless, undead lungs of the ghosts. Dark spots filled her vision almost instantly. Tenquis wheezed and stumbled against her. Geth lifted Wrath and charged but only managed a couple of steps before his legs buckled and gave out. Ekhaas struggled to stay on her feet, fighting panic as she tried to think of some defense.

  Nothing came, and still the ghosts consumed the air of the vaults. Ekhaas’s eardrums popped, and sounds became muffled and distant. Her vision became more dark than bright. Even the glowing specters became shadowy silhouettes, outlined by what seemed a brighter glow from behind them.

  A glow that came from the archway. A glow with figures-real, solid figures-in it.

  “By the glory of Dhakaan, cease!” The throbbing in Ekhaas’s ears rendered the ringing words as hollow echoes. “I speak for the Kech Volaar. Great mothers of the dirge, cease!”

  As her vision dimmed to darkness, Ekhaas saw Tuura Dhakaan and, at her side, the black-robed figure of Diitesh. The High Archivist had her arms raised, a curiously carved block of stone clutched in her hands. “I hold the Seal of the Eternal Bond!” she screamed, trying to match Tuura’s rolling tones-and failing. “Great mothers, cease. The vaults are safe.”

  However weak Diitesh’s command might have been, it was effective. The terrible pull ended. Air rushed in to fill the vacuum. Ekhaas drew in a shuddering breath and blinked, trying to clear the spots from her eyesight so she could see what was happening. The ancient ghosts had turned to regard Tuura and Diitesh and the handful of others who stood behind them. Guards, Ekhaas saw, and archivists. They huddled back, leaving only Tuura and Diitesh to face the ghosts. Diitesh raised the thing in her hands again.

  “Go!” she commanded. “Begone.”

  Tuura’s voi
ce became more soothing. “Great mothers, you do your duty. Return to your rest.” She bent her head before the ancient ghosts, and, after a moment, they returned the gesture.

  Then they were gone, fading back into the shadows and all of the ghosts along with them. When Tuura looked up, her eyes were squarely on Ekhaas. They narrowed. Her ears flattened, and her lips pulled back in anger.

  Ekhaas’s heart sank.

  A figure moved out from among the soldiers and archivists and took up a position at Diitesh’s side. Scorn and triumph twisted Kitaas’s face. “As I told you,” she said to Tuura.

  The leader of the Kech Volaar said nothing, just flicked one finger. Before Ekhaas and the others could even stand, they were surrounded. Again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  17 Aryth

  Tariic wanted to break her spirit. Ashi knew it from the way he watched her. Whenever they were in the same room, his eyes were on her like the eyes of a dragon. There is no escape, said that gaze. Your resistance only makes the wait more interesting.

  The possibility that he might succeed frightened her. Usually the sickening dread of it went away each morning as the renewed clarity of her dragonmark’s power settled over her mind. On the days that it didn’t, she did her best to ignore the possibility. Tariic wanted to see her proud and angry, like a great cat pacing the confines of a cage. Ashi found it easy to give that to him. She stalked the halls of Khaar Mbar’ost, fury surrounding her like a cloud. Even her hobgoblin escorts took to following a pace or two back. Everyone else slipped out of her way, finding somewhere else to be. When she was called on to perform the duties that Breven d’Deneith had placed upon her, she performed with detachment. What did it matter? Warlords and clan chiefs were all under the spell of the Rod of Kings anyway. They cared about the bond between Darguun and Deneith only as much as Tariic told them to.

  No one commented on the bright silver cuffs she wore. No one except Pradoor.

  “I’m told you have been presented with jewelry,” the old goblin priestess had cackled when Ashi had come across her one afternoon. “Come here. Let me touch them and feel the cool metal.”

  Ashi had been tempted to let her feel the cool metal in a blow across her withered face. The cuffs prevented her from attacking Tariic, but would they prevent her from attacking his associates? She’d restrained herself, though. Anything she did would find its way back to Tariic. Let him think he’d won this small victory. She’d held out her arm and let Pradoor run gnarled fingers over the silver.

  On rare days she ventured out of Khaar Mbar’ost. If anyone noticed that she did so only under the hard gaze of the warrior Oraan, they didn’t say anything.

  It was surprisingly easy to stop thinking of Aruget as “Aruget” and to take up calling him Oraan. His personality had altered along with his face-in imitation of the true Oraan, she supposed. It was difficult even in their private conversations to get him to acknowledge his former identity. “Why did you come back?” she’d asked him once. “Tariic knows you’re a changeling. Midian told him everything.”

  “Tariic knows Aruget was a changeling and a Dark Lantern of Breland. Someone like that would have fled back to his masters. That’s what Tariic will expect. Will he think of looking for another changeling under his nose? I’ve never met Aruget. I had nothing to do with him.”

  The first time they left Khaar Mbar’ost, they were followed. “Don’t look,” Oraan had said as they walked down one of Rhukaan Draal’s busy, twisting streets. “Midian’s on our trail.”

  Ashi had made no effort to evade him or even to pick him out of the crowd. The whole day’s expedition was only a show anyway. She wandered the streets, strolled through Rhukaan Draal’s infamous Bloody Market. The city had changed in the short time since Tariic had taken the throne of Darguun. Under Haruuc, all manner of races had walked shoulder to shoulder with dar in the streets. They were still there-elves, halflings, humans, dwarves, even an occasional warforged or eladrin-but they walked with caution while the goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears carried themselves with a pride that bordered on arrogance.

  “Tariic doesn’t need to use the Rod of Kings for it to have an influence,” she’d remarked softly. She glanced sideways at Oraan. “Don’t you feel it?”

  “I feel it,” he said, almost without moving his lips. “But unless he gives me a direct order, I can resist it.”

  “I could protect you from it.”

  “No. Better that my reactions are genuine. If Tariic suspects anything, he’ll act. He has to believe he’s cut you off from allies and has you in his power. Head down to the river and look across it. Let Midian see you pining for escape.”

  The next time Ashi saw Midian and Tariic together, they both seemed triumphantly jovial. The next time she and Oraan left Khaar Mbar’ost, they were trailed again, but not by Midian. The third time they went out into the city, they weren’t trailed at all.

  A thin fog had risen from the river overnight and settled over the city. From her window, Ashi could see Rhukaan Draal only as a ghost of itself, gray and damp under a weak sun that struggled to break through the clouds. She would have enjoyed going out anyway, but when Oraan entered her chambers to begin his turn as her guard, his eyes flicked meaningfully to her boots.

  She straightened. “I will go walking today.”

  The distaste that wrinkled his face and curled his ears seemed startling genuine. “I obey the lhesh’s command,” he said sullenly.

  They weren’t followed. Ashi’s trips out of Khaar Mbar’ost had apparently become innocuous in Tariic’s eyes. Still, Ashi waited until the red fortress had become an indistinct shape in the mist before she asked Oraan, “Where are we going?”

  “To inspect potential mercenaries.”

  She let the mysterious answer pass. Guided by signals from Oraan-who still checked the thin crowds behind them for signs of pursuit-they followed a winding route through the streets. Ashi would have been entirely lost except for the smell of the river growing slowly stronger as they walked. The buildings around her were unfamiliar. This wasn’t an area of the city she had visited before. She heard a sound she recognized, though-the clash of weapons, of warriors training.

  It came from the other side of a high, featureless wooden palisade that Oraan followed. Whatever the structure was, they seemed to be on the back side of it. Then a narrow door emerged from the fog and with it the figure of a hobgoblin warrior. A warrior she recognized, though she had never met him in person.

  Keraal, warlord of the rebellious Gan’duur clan until Dagii had defeated him and who came to serve the young lord of Mur Talaan, glanced at her without surprise, then moved out of her way. The chain that he had adopted as his personal weapon and that he carried wrapped around his torso clanked softly, but he said nothing.

  “Enter,” said a familiar voice from behind her. Ashi looked over her shoulder to find Aruget wearing Oraan’s armor. The changeling had changed his face as they walked. He flicked his ears at her. “We’re expected.”

  The door opened onto a short hall with several closed doors. The place smelled of sweat and close living. Aruget took the lead, climbing a flight of stairs to an upper floor and knocking on a door at the top. He paused, then knocked again.

  The door opened to reveal Dagii. His ears, already standing high, twitched. “Blood of Six Kings. Ashi, it’s good to see you again!”

  Goblin etiquette frowned upon touching except between family members in private, but the relief Ashi felt at seeing a friendly face was so powerful that she almost threw her arms around Dagii. She’d glimpsed him frequently in Khaar Mbar’ost, but there had always been a distance between them, an awareness of Tariic’s attention. Ashi suddenly almost felt free. She managed to hold herself to a smile and a deep nod of her head as she passed through the door. Dagii returned both and even nodded to Aruget before closing and bolting the door.

  The room at the top of the stairs was a combination briefing room and bedchamber, as if a field commander’s tent had been mo
ved indoors. Wide windows had been shuttered, but from beyond them she could once again hear the sounds of warriors training. She could guess where she was-the barracks of the Iron Fox company, the remains of the army that Dagii had led against Valenar raiders in the Battle of Zarrthec.

  Dagii wasn’t the only one in the room, though. Ashi started as Senen Dhakaan rose from a chair to greet her. “Lady Ashi.”

  Ashi looked from her to Dagii, then came to rest on Aruget. “How-?”

  “Careful work and patience,” he said. “What did you think I’d been working toward? It’s going to take more than two of us to bring down Tariic.”

  “It will likely take more than four.” She took Aruget’s arm and drew him close. “Do they know?”

  “That I’m an agent of Breland?” His lips pursed slightly and she understood the warning. Say no more. “Yes. Tariic’s ambitions pose a danger to all of us.”

  “We’ve met with Aruget before, Ashi,” said Dagii. He took one of the chairs. He motioned for the others to sit as well. “He brought Senen and me together. We wanted to include you from the beginning, but he made us see that the time wasn’t right.”

  “If Tariic suspects anything, he’ll act,” Ashi said. Oraan’s words to her. She looked between Dagii and Senen again, feeling a comfort she hadn’t felt in days. “Has there been any news from Geth and Ekhaas?”

  Senen shook her head, offering Dagii the same apologetic glance she gave Ashi-of course, Ashi realized, he would be waiting for word from Ekhaas as well. “They reached Volaar Draal and were granted sanctuary. That’s all Tuura Dhakaan told me. She’s wary of raising Tariic’s suspicions as well.”

  Ashi grimaced. “So we’re all paralyzed by fear of what Tariic might do?” she asked. “How are we supposed to stop him if we’re too afraid to act?”

  Senen’s ears lay back at her challenge. Even Dagii frowned. “Every battle requires a strategy. Every strategy requires intelligence. We begin by gathering intelligence. Before we do anything, we need to know exactly what Tariic is up to.” He leaned forward and pulled around a map of Darguun so that Ashi could see it. “Tariic doesn’t trust me like he used to, but I’ve managed to learn a few things. Here’s Zarrthec”-he pointed to a dot on the map, then moved his finger and traced the long wavering line of Darguun’s eastern border-“and this is the Mournland. The Valenar elves who survived the Battle of Zarrthec fled east. We didn’t attack their camp in the Mournland, so we can assume it’s still there. With the airships of House Lyrandar to supply them, the surviving Valenar could rally and attack again. Tariic has been increasing the presence of troops along the border of the Mournland against that possibility.”