Word of Traitors: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 2 Read online

  Even the grieving tree that still stood on one side of the dais looked strangely beautiful: white and gleaming, a piece of strange sculpture rather than an ancient device of torture.

  Buzzing excitement drifted through the crowd, but Ashi doubted if anyone could be quite as excited as she was—after all, no one else knew what had been at stake leading up to this moment. Not even the dire whispers that passed between those she stood with could darken her spirits.

  “I’ve had a letter from friends in House Lyrandar,” said Pater d’Orien. “They confirm there are factions within Lyrandar that see a greater profit in committing their services to Valenar than in selling to both sides.”

  “Sindra among them?” Vounn asked. Her lips barely moved.

  Pater snorted. “What do you think?”

  Esmyssa Entar ir’Korran raised an eyebrow. “Orien and Deneith were quick to sell their services to Darguun,” she pointed out. Ashi wondered why the ambassador of Zilargo had bothered to stand with them. When the ceremony started, the little gnome wouldn’t be able to see anything—Midian had paused to greet them earlier, then passed on to get closer to the dais. The conversation must have been worth more to Esmyssa than the view.

  Pater just snorted again. “Selling cartage to Valenar elves is like selling stone to dwarves. Their warbands carry everything they need. Our routes in Valenar are limited to runs between a few established fortresses.”

  “Deneith’s relationship with Valenar is nearly as important as our relationship with Darguun,” said Vounn. “An offer was made, of course. Neutrality saw Deneith through the Last War. More, I don’t know. Details of forces contracted to opposing sides in a conflict are kept secret.”

  “And if you were to speculate, Lady Vounn?” asked Esmyssa.

  Vounn pressed her lips together for a moment before she said. “If I were to speculate, I would say that the Valaes Tairn declined our offer. This war is as much a point of honor for them as it is for the Darguuls. We were only able to contract to Darguun because the mercenaries were their own people. The war is a test of ancient blood against ancient blood.” She bent her head to the fifth member of their group.

  Senen Dhakaan dipped her head in return, but added, “My blood, but not yet my people. The Kech Volaar will watch the war, though. An alliance with Darguun may still be a possibility.”

  Esmyssa’s eyes flashed with delight. “I’ve heard,” she said, “that the Kech Shaarat clan have embraced the war and have already approached Tariic about sending warriors to ight.”

  Senen’s ears lay back. “The Kech Shaarat would fight pigs in a wallow and call it a rout. I wouldn’t put much value to their boasting—”

  The wail of Darguul war-pipes burst over the throne room, followed a moment later by the throbbing of drums. Conversations ended instantly and all heads turned to the dais. As the martial music rose to a pitch, a door opened and a procession emerged, one by one, to take up positions behind the throne. Razu came first—and Ashi’s curiosity stirred. The old mistress of rituals looked shaken.

  Munta, a pitcher and basin on a tray in his hands, followed her. His face was dark and troubled. Ashi glanced at Vounn. Her mentor was frowning.

  “What is it?” asked Esmyssa. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Ashi told her.

  Aguus came next, then Daavn. The warlord of Marhaan seemed smug. Then—

  The breath caught in Ashi’s throat. Her hand went to the sword at her side, gripping the hilt and ready to draw. Makka stood on the dais with the spiked crown of Darguun in his hands. Her reaction, however, was lost in the chaos that gripped the throne room. Many people—warlords and ambassadors alike—gasped. A piper’s instrument struck a screechingly bad note.

  A very few warlords, after a moment of shock, shouted out, “Praise the Six!”

  “Quill and staff, what’s happening?” Esmyssa finally gave up and squirmed forward through the audience as only a gnome or goblin could.

  Ashi ignored her, spinning to face Vounn. “That’s Makka!” she said.

  “That’s the goblin who led the famine march!” Vounn stared at the old goblin woman, her eyes milky white, Makka carried on his shoulder. “What is this?”

  Pater’s round face was tense. “Host shield us,” he said. He pointed at the goblin woman, then at Makka. “Dark green is the color of the Devourer. The winged wyrm is a symbol of the Fury. Tariic has gone back to the Dark Six.”

  Makka reached the throne and shifted the crown into one hand so he could lower the goblin woman to the ground with the other, then handed the crown to her. It was larger than her whole head. The effect should have been comical, but Ashi didn’t feel like laughing.

  Geth appeared, the false rod raised in front of him. His gaze swept the audience and found her. His eyes were hard. All Ashi could do was nod to him, then he had taken a position beside Makka. He glanced at the bugbear. Makka looked back at him and bared his teeth.

  If it had been her up there, Ashi didn’t think she would have been able to stop herself from running Makka through. She was surprised Geth didn’t. Instead, he just stiffened and glared back.

  He was going through with the coronation, she realized. Makka’s presence, Tariic’s unexpected embrace of the Dark Six—neither mattered. They had to get the false rod into Tariic’s hands and Geth would make sure it happened.

  “Ekhaas told me about Makka,” Senen said. “Geth bears an insult.”

  “He has a duty, Senen Dhakaan,” Ashi told her tersely.

  The music swelled again. Tariic entered, the armor he wore flashing in the light of the hall. The cheers and applause that greeted him were half-hearted at best, the crowd uncertain what to make of the appearance of Makka and the goblin woman. Tariic didn’t break his stride, but his ears went back. Across the dais, Daavn jerked his head at someone in the crowd and instantly a renewed cheer rose up. Tariic stopped in front of the throne, faced the crowd, and raised his hands.

  The pipes and drums stopped. The cheers died out. For a moment, there was silence, then Razu cried out in Goblin, “Behold Tariic of Rhukaan Taash, brave warrior and mighty warlord!”

  She rapped her staff twice against the floor. Tariic pulled off his gauntlets, then reached up and removed his helmet. Beneath it, his red-brown skin was shiny with sweat, His hair was lank and damp. Munta came forward, holding out the tray he carried. Tariic raised the pitcher on it and poured a long stream of water into the basin. Returning the pitcher to the tray, he plunged his hands into the basin and splashed water onto his face and through his hair. Munta lifted a square of thick white cloth from the tray and offered it to him. Tariic dried himself and returned the cloth. Munta stepped back to his place.

  “He is puriied in the mighty waters!” said Razu. Her staff rapped the floor again, and this time Aguus stepped up to lay a magnificent long cloak of tiger skin across Tariic’s shoulders, fastening it with thick gold chains to rings on his armor. “He is clothed in the strength of beasts!” Her staff rapped the floor a third time and Daavn came before Tariic with a self-confident smile on his face. He went down one knee and held Tariic’s sword up to him. The new lhesh took it and favored Daavn with a smile and a nod as he sheathed the weapon. Daavn returned to his place, like a dog who had been thrown a scrap from his master’s table.

  “He is armed,” said Razu, “with his own skill and cunning! He is become more than Tariic of Rhukaan Taash.” She half-turned to Tariic, encompassing him with a sweep of her staff while still facing the crowd below. “High warlord, how will you be known?”

  Tariic raised his head high. “Kurar’taarn,” he said and a murmur of approval swept through the throne room. It took Ashi a moment to understand the phrase in human terms.

  The death of elves.

  “He embraces the event that deines his reign,” said Senen.

  “He’s slapping the Valenar in the face,” said Vounn.

  Razu’s staff hit the floor again. The murmur of the crowd slipped away—and beca
me an eerie quiet as Makka guided the blind goblin woman forward before retreating. The goblin stood alone on the dais, facing Tariic, with the crown of Darguun held out before her.

  At Ashi’s side, Senen let out a soft hiss. Ashi looked at her. “What is it?”

  “The ritual humbling,” said Senen. “By tradition, warlords of the Ghaal’dar Clans are confirmed in their position by priests of the Dark Six, but first they must kneel before the priest to show their respect for the Six. She won’t raise the crown to put it on his head. He’ll have to lower himself.”

  “But she’s a goblin. Tariic will have to practically lie on the floor!”

  “It is the tradition,” Senen said with a certain satisfaction.

  On the dais, Tariic stepped before the goblin woman and said in a ringing tone, “Pradoor, I honor the Six and crave their blessing. You will stand at my side and I will listen to your guidance.” He paused and a wry smile crept across his face. “But the emperors of Dhakaan did not crawl before priests, and neither will I.”

  He reached down and plucked the crown from her hands. Turning to face the assembled warlords and ambassadors, he placed it on his head. “I name myself Lhesh Tariic Kurar’taarn!”

  Once again, confusion swept through the throne room.

  “Tradition, you say?” Pater asked Senen.

  The ambassador of the Kech Volaar actually looked both surprised and strangely pleased. “He embraces a tradition older than the Ghaal’dar Clans,” she said with amazement in her voice. “Until the empire began to decline into the Desperate Times, the Dhakaani emperors acknowledged no power greater than their own. I didn’t think it was something widely known or respected outside of the Dhakaani clans.”

  Ashi watched Makka’s face twist with rage, and the face of the goblin woman, Pradoor, go from confusion to anger … to amusement. Her voice rose, thin and shrill but more powerful than Ashi would have expected. “May your reign last as long as your strength and cunning, lhesh, and the Six show you their favor all your days!”

  There was something in the blessing that brought a chill to Ashi’s skin, but the Darguuls seemed to pay it no mind. Tentatively at first, then in a great rush, applause and cheering put an end to the silence. Pradoor turned and groped her way back to Makka and her place behind the throne while Tariic turned and stretched his hands out over the crowd in a blessing of his own.

  Razu rapped her staff against the floor, but the sound was almost inaudible and she was forced to gesture for Geth to come forward. Ashi’s heart seemed to slow. This was the moment they had waited days for. Giving Makka and Pradoor a wide berth, Geth approached Tariic with the false rod, grasped in his gauntleted hand, held out before him. Tariic turned to face him, triumph and eagerness written on his face. Shifter and hobgoblin nodded to each other, and Geth knelt down and extended the rod. Tariic drew a slow breath, preparing himself for the final ritual of his coronation, then he reached down and closed his fingers around the byeshk shaft.

  He froze. His face tightened. He leaned close to Geth and whispered something to him. The shifter stiffened.

  Ashi’s heart might have stopped altogether. She felt Vounn’s hand on her arm and heard the lady seneschal ask, “Ashi?”

  Words felt thick on her tongue. “Something’s wrong,” she said.

  Geth could see the frustration in Razu’s eyes. The old hobgoblin lived for ritual and the coronation, her shining moment, had been spoiled, first by Makka and Pradoor’s unexpected appearance, then by Tariic’s startling crowning of himself. When the crowd drowned out the sound of her staff, he half-expected her to delay the ceremony until the cheers faded.

  Don’t, he willed the mistress of rituals. Just keep going. Finish it!

  When she turned and gestured for him to go ahead, he almost gasped with relief. If he hadn’t been holding the false rod in his armored hand, it probably would have slid right out of his sweating palm.

  Makka’s glares had been redirected to Tariic, but Geth still stepped wide around him and Pradoor, then fixed his eyes on the new lhesh and crossed the dais. His mouth was as dry as his palms were wet. Tariic, eyes bright and ears high, bent his head to him. Geth nodded in return and lowered himself to his knees.

  The dais under him was marked with a dark stain. He knelt, he realized, on the spot where Haruuc had died. The circle of succession was complete. Power passed from Haruuc to his shava to a new ruler. He looked up into Tariic’s face again and held out the rod. Tariic’s chest swelled as he breathed in. He reached down and grasped the rod—

  —and his eyes widened, then narrowed. He bent closer and the whisper that came out between his sharp teeth was hot in Geth’s ear.

  “This,” snarled Tariic, “is not the Rod of Kings!”

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  25 Sypheros

  Geth twisted his head to stare at Tariic, but the hobgoblin was already straightening and sliding the false rod out of his slack grasp. The moment it was in Tariic’s grip alone, Geth felt the magic Tenquis had crafted into it take hold, enhancing the new lhesh’s presence. The cheers of the crowd died into exclamations of amazement. Tariic seized his free hand and drew him up to stand at his side, raising their joined hands high as if they were two warriors united in victory.

  Razu’s staff slammed twice against the floor and her voice rose in ringing, triumphant tones. “Behold, Darguun! Behold Tariic Kurar’taarn, second lhesh of Darguun!”

  This time there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation in the wild cheers that erupted. Arms beat against chests in a flurry of applause. Tariic lifted the rod and waved it. His other hand tightened on Geth’s in a crushing grip.

  Shock numbed Geth. Tariic knew the rod was false. He’d recognized the truth as soon as he had touched it. How? The false rod was a perfect duplicate except for the spiral Tenquis had added and that end of the rod had been concealed in Geth’s hand. Tariic couldn’t have seen, much less felt, it. It was almost as if he’d known there was more to the true rod, known that he should have felt the glory of the emperors of Dhakaan in his mind as Haruuc had.

  But that wasn’t possible. Haruuc couldn’t have told him about it. None of those who knew the rod’s secret would have told him. Tariic couldn’t have known unless he touched the rod before and he had never—

  A memory rose in Geth’s mind of the day that they had brought the Rod of Kings back to Rhukaan Draal and stood in triumph before the dais in the throne room, basking in Haruuc’s gratitude.

  The day that Tariic had taken the rod from him and climbed the dais to kneel and present it to Haruuc.

  Mere moments of contact. Small enough to forget in the wash of events but long enough. Haruuc had told Geth that the rod had been in his head since the moment he held it, and that once the rod’s power had gripped him, it fed him its memories of Dhakaan’s glories whether it was in his grasp or not.

  The Rod of Kings answered to those with the will to rule, the old lhesh had said. And Tariic had the will to rule. He’d always had the will. It was always going to be me, Tariic had said. I was always going to be lhesh.

  They’d tried to save Haruuc’s successor from the curse of the rod, but it had already been too late.

  But it might not be too late to save Darguun. The true rod was still safe in his chambers. For now.

  Geth’s gut tightened, determination slipping past shock and pushing aside the glamour of the false rod. The thin armor under Tariic’s upraised arm made a tempting target. A hard punch there would certainly force the lhesh to ease his grip. If he could escape and retrieve the rod, he could run. Tariic would rule, but he wouldn’t have the true rod.

  He curled his free hand, his gauntleted hand, into a fist.

  Tariic caught the movement and squeezed tighter. “Attack me,” he said into Geth’s ear, “and I’ll denounce you as a traitor. I may not have the Rod of Kings but I have the warlords on my side now. You’ll die before you can leave this hall. Continue with the ceremony.”

  A few stairs
led down from the dais to the floor of the throne room and a wide aisle clear to the hall’s great doors. Tariic, pulling him along at his side, descended them. The music of pipes and drums began again. Geth knew what would happen next—or at least what was expected to happen next: Tariic would pass through the crowd of warlords in triumph, then proceed out of Khaar Mbar’ost to greet the people who had gathered before the fortress. The final act of the coronation spectacle. Once it was complete, there would be nothing, no interruption, that could stop Tariic from taking the rod by force.

  He had to get away from the new lhesh before then.

  He raised his gauntlered arm and waved to the crowd in imitation of Tariic. The hobgoblin glanced at him and growled, “What are you doing?”

  “The same thing you are,” Geth said through a false smile. He tried to find Ashi, but it was harder to see through the mass of waving arms from the floor than it had been from the dais.

  “Where is the rod?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  “You knew, didn’t you?” Tariic kept waving. “So did Chetiin. He did us all a favor by killing my uncle.”

  Geth couldn’t find a reply to that but Tariic didn’t give him a chance to answer.

  “Haruuc couldn’t master the rod—I felt it trying to reach him and I felt him holding it back. That was his mistake. Embrace the glories of Dhakaan and you become the master of the rod. I’m not going to make the mistake Haruuc did. Give me the true rod, Geth, and I’ll tame it. I’ll unlock its secrets.”

  A chill ran through Geth. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Tariic.”

  The doors of the throne room were getting closer. An honor guard waited on the other side, ready to escort Tariic—or obey his commands to whisk a treacherous shifter out of sight. Geth glanced back over his shoulder. The others who had participated in the coronation ritual had followed them down from the dais. Munta and Razu, the two he might have counted on for some kind of aid, were last and too far away. Aguus was paying more attention to the crowd than to the others in the procession. Pradoor and Makka—out of the question.