Word of Traitors: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 2 Page 24

  She heard Keraal snort in amusement. She squeezed his hand and Chetiin’s. “Sing!” she said, and launched into the chorus.

  “Beer! I love my beer! Beer I love! I love my beer! Be-eer-eer-beer!”

  Slowly and dirge-like at first, the men joined in, but their song gained strength until even Dagii sang “Be-eer-eer-beer” with an offkey lustiness. By the time she launched into the second verse, their joined hands were swinging back and forth in time to the song.

  “When I was a child, my father gave me sticks.

  He told me they were spears and blades and taught me many tricks.

  But now that I’m a warrior, I keep my weapons near.

  I have my sword, I have my shield, I also have my beer!

  Beer! I have my beer—”

  In no story that Ekhaas had ever told or even heard had the heroes crept up on their enemy while simultaneously singing a drinking song. In fact, she was fairly confident that no duur’kala had ever heard of such a thing. There was no dignity to it. There was precious little stealth. If there had been elves lurking in the mist—though she couldn’t imagine that they would linger here—they probably would have dismissed the whole spectacle as an illusion too odd to be believed.

  And yet it was ridiculously fun. By the time Marrow came to a halt and huffed at them in warning, they were all laughing softly, the terrors of the mist banished. Up ahead, the mists were thinning and honest moonlight filtering through. Marrow sat down on her haunches and growled at them. Keraal, wiping tears out of his eyes, choked, “Yes, mother! As you say, mother!”

  Chetiin chuckled. Marrow actually looked bewildered.

  Dagii drew a deep breath, steadying himself. “Move to the side,” he said, gesturing. “If the elves come this way frequently, they may have sentries posted.”

  They followed him, each of them struggling to suppress the lingering humor of the song that had seen them through the mists. Ekhaas gulped lungfuls of air, pride warming her belly. Dagii caught her eye and gave her a thin smile that was as rewarding as gold.

  As they emerged from the mists, she could feel the wrongness of the Mournland that Marrow, through Chetiin, had tried to describe. The air felt too thin, the moonlight too harsh. The stars didn’t twinkle but instead seemed hard as ice. There was a smell in the air that reminded her of a lightning strike or certain powders burned in an alchemist’s furnace. Even the land had changed—somehow they stood just below the rocky brow of a steep slope, though she was certain that they hadn’t climbed anything more than a gentle grade. Looking back along the brow, she could see a gap, probably the start of a way down the other side and likely the way that the elves had gone.

  The boulders lining the brow of the slope made climbing easy, but Chetiin still reached the top before any of them. Staying low to avoid presenting a betraying silhouette, he stuck his head up over the edge, froze for an instant, then ducked back down, his eyes very wide. With one hand, he waved them all forward. With the other, he gestured for absolute silence.

  Dagii reached the edge next. Ekhaas watched his ears stand before falling back flat against his head. Then she was at the edge, too, and peering between two boulders down into another wide valley—

  —at a camp that stretched from one side of the valley to the other. Tents made a small town. Horses picketed together at the center of the camp made a herd that could have raised a noise like thunder if they’d been running. Next to the picketed horses stood a pavilion flying a long swallow-tailed banner with a pattern of stars. There was activity at the pavilion. The survivors of the attack on Tii’ator were likely reporting their defeat. Ekhaas tried to guess at how many elves moved beneath the harsh moonlight and how many more might be asleep in those tents. Far more than the four or five warbands Tariic had anticipated in his rousing speech in Khaar Mbar’ost.

  Dagii touched Ekhaas’s hand and motioned for her to go back. All of them slipped carefully to the ground and joined Marrow back at the edge of the mists.

  “Maabet!” cursed Keraal. “That’s a full Valaes Tairn warclan. They’re hiding an entire warclan in the Mournland! How did they get them all through the mist?”

  “I don’t know,” Dagii said tightly, “but they must have some trick. How many do you think there are?”

  “Three hundred,” said Keraal at the same moment as Ekhaas and Chetiin said, “Four hundred.”

  Dagii nodded. “We’ll assume the worst. Four hundred Valaes Tairn warriors. Based on our experience tonight, enough to crush our troops without lathering their horses.”

  “What do we do?” asked Ekhaas.

  “We laugh our way back through the mists,” Dagii told her in tones that brooked no laughter whatsoever. “We return to Tii’ator, dispatch all of our messenger falcons in the hope that at least one makes it to Khaar Mbar’ost, then we run back to the main army, make a stand outside Zarrthec, and hope we can slow them down.”

  Keraal grunted agreement. Chetiin nodded. Ekhaas looked at all three of them. “Slow them down? If they get through us, they won’t have far to go to reach Zarrthec.”

  Dagii bared his teeth. “They’re not interested in Zarrthec, Ekhaas. They didn’t bring that many warriors to attack a village, and if they wanted to harry the countryside they would be doing it already instead of hiding here. A force of that strength is meant for a big target. They’re planning an attack on Rhukaan Draal.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  27 Sypheros

  Safe,” said Aruget and led Ashi and Vounn across a small square. Krakuul watched their rear. Ashi could have told Aruget the square was clear of assassins, assailants, thugs, thieves, or any other danger. Darkness was falling, but there was still enough light for her to see the streets of Rhukaan Draal. The houses that lined the streets here were built of stone with high, windowless outer walls that could have seen off a casual attack. It was as wealthy and peaceful an area as the city could boast—a pleasant place for a dinner party, a terrible place for an ambush. She scowled at Aruget’s back.

  Vounn poked her in the ribs. Ashi forced her face to return to neutrality and wondered what Krakuul thought of Aruget’s new caution. She hoped he was as frustrated as she was. The lump at the back of her skull, two days old now but still tender, throbbed as if to torment her.

  Down the street, guards stood before a door marked with the crest of House Cannith. A warforged, metal body swathed in a gown stiff with intricate embroidery, appeared from inside the doorway. “Lady Seneschal Vounn, Lady Ashi, welcome to Cannith enclave.”

  In marked contrast to a mask-like face and green glass eyes, the warforged’s voice was lively, warm, and surprisingly delicate. Even more than the gown, the voice and a certain way of moving made Ashi think instinctively of the warforged as a woman in spite of her muscular frame and bald head. The effect was disconcerting, and she had to force herself to nod when the warforged offered a graceful curtsy.

  Vounn didn’t even blink. “Thank you, Stitch,” she said. “We’re late. Has dinner begun?”

  The warforged ushered them into a narrow, high-ceilinged entry hall. “Lady Dannel has waited for you, lady. I’ll show you to the library. If your guards care to go to the kitchen, they’ll find refreshment.” She indicated an unobtrusive door just inside the main entrance.

  Aruget looked at Vounn, scowling, but when she gestured he and Krakuul vanished through the door.

  The lines of the house were clean and fine, the walls and floors faced with polished stone, yet there was a strange echo about the place as if it was more than half empty. Ashi tried to sneak a look around as Stitch led them through the entry hall.

  The warforged caught her curious glances. “The enclave in Rhukaan Draal was built at the same time that House Cannith was constructing Khaar Mbar’ost and other projects for Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor,” Stitch said. “At the time, there were many more members of the house in Rhukaan Draal than there are now. But we cling to our pride, don’t we?”

  “Uh … yes,” s
aid Ashi, but Stitch had already turned away to open a fine wooden door ornamented with nothing more than its natural grain.

  “Lady Seneschal Vounn d’Deneith and Lady Ashi d’Deneith,” she announced.

  In a library with walls lined with velvet drapes and dark bookshelves, nearly a dozen people looked back at them. Ashi saw Pater d’Orien and Esmyssa Entar ir’Korran. She recognized most of the others: the ambassadors of Breland, Karrnath, and Aundair, the envoys of Houses Vadalis and Medani. Dannel d’Cannith, envoy of her house, strode up to Vounn, welcoming her with a smile.

  Just the wealthy and powerful of Darguun’s visiting dignitaries gathered for dinner—as if there was absolutely nothing wrong.

  Two days before, with the sounds of the city celebrating Tariic’s coronation drifting in the window, Ashi had sat with a cold cloth pressed to her head in the chambers she shared with Vounn and listened to the hobgoblin and the lady seneschal argue.

  “You hit her?”

  “She would have tried to attack Daavn and his guards, Lady Vounn.”

  “So you hit her?”

  “Lhesh Tariic sent Daavn after Geth. If Ashi had attacked him, she would have been interfering with the lhesh’s orders.” Aruget gave Vounn a level look. “Would Deneith have been able to protect her?”

  That won the argument for him. Vounn gave him cold thanks for his discretion, sent him away to find out what had happened to Geth—and turned her attention to Ashi.

  “You protected me with your dragonmark. You told me not to trust Tariic. Geth has clearly done something to anger him. You’re clearly involved.” The lady seneschal’s expression, normally as calm and controlled as still water, was like a storm. “No more evasions, Ashi. What’s going on?”

  There was no way around it. Ashi had given too much away already and even when she tried to hold back, it all came rushing out. She confessed everything, from the pact that she and the others had made to keep the rod’s power a secret to Haruuc’s discovery of the curse, to Geth’s decision to seize the rod after the assassination and Midian’s idea to present the new lhesh with a false rod, to the fear that had pierced her at Tariic’s reaction during the coronation. The only thing she managed to keep secret was Tenquis’s name.

  Red spots of color appeared high on Vounn’s cheeks. She sat down stiffly and didn’t move or speak for a long, long time. When she did finally speak, it was to say, “You’re leaving Darguun.”

  Ashi’s head snapped up. “I won’t! Geth needs me now more than ever!”

  “You would rather be arrested for conspiracy?”

  “It’s not a conspira—”

  “It is,” Vounn said harshly. “You may have had the best of intentions, but what you have done is conspire against the throne—and in every nation of Khorvaire, that’s a crime. If you were a Darguul, it would be treason. Is there evidence? You’re Geth’s friend, so suspicion will fall on you, but is there hard evidence?”

  Her gut felt numb. “Geth’s word, but Geth would never betray me or any of us.”

  “If Tariic is serious about rooting you out, he may not give Geth a choice.” Vounn closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and put her hands on Ashi’s shoulders. Her voice was tense but not so angry. “If you had attacked Daavn, Tariic would have had a reason to arrest you—you should thank the Host that Aruget stopped you. He had the right of it. Unless he has evidence that you’ve done something wrong, Tariic would be putting himself against Deneith if he tried to take you captive.”

  “And if he has a reason to arrest me?” Ashi asked.

  “Then I’ll have to give you to him.” Vounn looked into her eyes as she said it. “He won’t want to anger us, but we don’t want to anger him. Deneith values our contracts too highly. You’ve dug yourself a grave, Ashi. We need to get you out of Darguun before you’re forced into it.”

  “Abandon my friends or you’ll abandon me?” Ashi gave her a bitter smile. “What if I don’t give Tariic any reason to arrest me? What if Geth doesn’t betray me?” The smile twisted a bit. “What if he escaped Daavn? I’ll have left my friends in danger for nothing.”

  “You want to take a chance on that?”

  “It’s what you’re doing.” She lifted her chin stubbornly. “My friends took a chance on me once, Vounn. They gave me the strength to leave the Bonetree Clan.”

  “Some people would say you repaid that debt by giving yourself up to House Deneith when you had to.”

  “Are you one of them?”

  Vounn’s lips pressed into a thin white line and she looked away—but anything she might have said was interrupted by a knock on the door and Aruget’s entrance. The hobgoblin must have sensed the tension in the room. His ears flicked. “Should I come back?”

  “No,” said Vounn. “Report. What have you found out?”

  “I’ve seen Geth,” Aruget said. Ashi’s heart gave a lurch. “He walks with Tariic in the hall of honor in advance of the coronation feast.”

  “How did he look? Was he a captive?” Ashi asked.

  Aruget shook his head. “He didn’t walk like a captive. He looked uninjured, though he had changed his clothes since the coronation. There was a crowd around Tariic—I didn’t want to get too close.”

  “Was Makka—the bugbear from the coronation—there?”

  “No.” Aruget hesitated, then added, “I went past Geth’s chamber but there were guards outside his door and I didn’t try to go in.”

  “It would have been suspicious if you had,” Vounn said, nodding. “What about Daavn? Did you see him at all?”

  “No.”

  Ashi stood up. Between her argument with Vounn and Aruget’s news, her blood seemed to boil. Her head felt light. Geth hadn’t been captured—or had he? If it had been anyone else, she might have been afraid that Tariic had used the Rod of Kings to command that they stay by his side, but thanks to his bond with the Sword of Heroes, Geth was immune to the rod’s influence. There had to be some reason he’d stayed with Tariic, though. “I need to talk to Geth. We need to know what happened.”

  “Sit down, Ashi.” Vounn’s eyebrows drew together as she thought. “Is it possible that there’s another explanation for what happened at the ceremony? Geth doesn’t like spectacles—and he did seem friendly with Tariic as they left the throne room.”

  “At which point he bolted for his room like a rabbit.” Ashi shook her head, teeth clenched. “It’s not my imagination. Something is wrong, Vounn. If I can talk to Geth—”

  “You can’t,” Vounn said with a note of finality. “You are going to stay in these chambers while we figure out the status of things.” Ashi started to protest, but her mentor silenced her with a raised finger. “I will grant you that the situation doesn’t seem as dire as I thought. Maybe Geth is on good terms with Tariic and there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Ashi saw Aruget’s ears twitch and rise at the hint of trouble.

  Vounn ignored him. Lips drawn down at the corners, she said, “You can stay in Darguun for now—at least until we know whether you’re in danger or not. But there are two conditions.” She held up a finger again, then added a second one. “First, don’t give Tariic any reason to take an interest in you. Stay in our chambers and keep your head down—I’ll pass word that you’re not feeling well—while Aruget and I make a few discreet inquiries. Second, we make arrangements to get you out of Darguun, and when I tell you to leave, you leave.”

  She lowered her hand. “Your friends took a chance on you. You’re taking a chance on your friends, and now so am I. Does that satisfy you?”

  It would have been impossible to be completely happy at that moment. Ashi still had too much anger and fear inside her and Vounn’s face was set in spite of her offer of compromise. It was also, Ashi knew, the best aid she could hope for.

  She nodded.

  The long table in the Cannith dining room had been set with delicate porcelain plates ringed with silver and remarkable goblets of cut glass. The big candelabras that marched down the cen
ter of the table were likewise cut glass. The flickering candlelight—no cold, steady magical light here—danced through them. Esmyssa Entar ir’Korran, seated in a special tall chair, leaned between two of the dazzling pillars. “We haven’t seen you in Tariic’s court since the coronation,” the Zil ambassador said.

  “I’ve been ill,” said Ashi.

  Esmyssa gave an understanding nod. “I’m so glad that you were able to come tonight, though,” she said. “You weren’t in Rhukaan Draal long enough to join one of our dinners before Haruuc sent you off. Then of course, the business with the Gan’duur and mourning afterward. I’m sure you’ll find the evening interesting.”

  “I hope so,” Ashi said with a politeness that she didn’t really feel. “Vounn insisted that I make the effort to attend.” She shifted aside slightly as a servant’s arm reached past to place a shallow bowl of soup in front of her. It was creamy, fragrant, and golden. Seated on Ashi’s left, between her and Vounn, Pater d’Orien breathed deep.

  “Ah,” he sighed. “Aundairian. Beautiful. Proper food from the Five Nations—not that I have anything against dar cuisine, but sometimes you want to sit down with friends over a meal that reminds you of home. I’m sure you understand what I mean, Senen Dhakaan.”

  On the other side of the table, Senen’s ears bent slightly. “More than you know, Lord Pater,” she said. She picked up a spoon and stirred the soup dubiously. “It seems rich.”

  “Yes, well, give it a try. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like it.”

  Senen started to scoop up a little of the soup, then glanced at Dannel d’Cannith, chatting casually with Vounn while the rest of the table was served. The ambassador of the Kech Volaar set her spoon down again and sat back stiffly. Ashi understood her discomfort in the situation—it reminded her strongly of her own first experience with the etiquette of formal dining in the style of the Five Nations. To tell the truth, she preferred dar feasts and the fashion of eating as food was presented. But seeing Senen here at all was a surprise. It had taken quite some time for the strongly traditionalist hobgoblin to find common ground to even talk with Vounn. To find her eating with non-Darguuls was a sign that she was opening up a little bit more.