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

  The floor of the corridor was streaked with smeared trails of dried blood connecting the cell doors with the heavy door at the end. Ashi’s gut knotted. Her hand tightened on the sword.

  Ekhaas touched her arm and pointed. Only one of the cell doors was closed and barred. Ashi crept closer. Through the barred window, she could hear a strangely pathetic sound. A soft, whimpering growl. But the cell was too deeply shadowed for her to see anything. Midian nudged her and held out a tiny everbright lantern, even smaller than the one that had been lost on the roof. She opened it only slightly and held it up to the window.

  The cold, magical light fell on Geth’s curled and trembling form. He lay on his side, facing the door. He’d drawn his shirt over himself like a thin blanket. Where it gaped open, Ashi could see big patches of bare skin amid the thick hair of the shifter’s torso and arms. The hair had been burned away. The flesh beneath was ravaged by healed and healing scars. She directed the light to his face, frightened at what she might find.

  Dirty. Haggard. But intact. Her heart skipped and her breath came sharp.

  As if he’d heard it, Geth’s eyes snapped open, shining like an animal’s. The growl rose sharply and he pulled back, rolling up into a crouch. “Geth!” Ashi said. “Geth! It’s us!”

  He jerked. “Ashi!” He jumped to his feet and charged at the door, sharp teeth bared. “Let me out! They’ve taken Tenquis!”

  Ashi dropped the lantern to the floor and dragged at the heavy bolts that held the door. Geth stood on the other side, shaking the door and making the job harder. The thick nails of his fingers gouged at the wood. His eyes were very wide, the pupils as large and dark as a madman’s. Ashi could smell sweat, blood, and burned flesh on him. His savage growl rumbled and broke.

  She pulled the last bolt just as he slammed especially hard against the door. It burst open, throwing her back into Ekhaas and Midian. Geth didn’t even glance at them, but just hurled himself down the corridor to the heavy door. He hit the door with a muscular shoulder and whatever latch held it closed on the other side tore right out of the frame. Running after him, Ashi caught a glimpse into the room beyond—

  Shadows in deep corners. Dim, ruddy light glinting on sharp metal. A pale goblin jerking away from an angled table to which a dark-skinned tiefling was bound, arms and legs outstretched. Blood dripping from the table and pooling on the floor under it.

  —then Geth slammed the door behind himself. A bestial roar rattled the broken wood. Metal crashed on stone. There was a hiss like hot coals spilled into water and a sudden, awful stench, then a thin, wordless cry.

  Geth didn’t look at Tenquis—at what had been done to the tiefling—a second time. Flayed skin, glistening muscle, and exposed bone slid through his mind but the images were buried in the hot fury that fell over him. Fury at what Tenquis had suffered. Fury at what he had suffered.

  His charge into the room had sent a brazier crashing to the ground. Blood on the floor quenched the hot coals, raising a haze of stinking smoke. The torturer cried out and tried to flee into the depths of the chamber but Geth’s hand closed on his skinny neck. The shifter whirled him off his feet and slammed him hard into the stained boards of an upright rack.

  His free hand groped for and found one of the torturer’s knives. With another roar, he drove it through the pale goblin’s shoulder and into the wood beneath. The impact jolted his hand. The goblin cried out against the grip that strangled him, his pain as wordless as Geth’s rage. Another knife went into his other shoulder, sharp blade grating on bone, and Geth released his hold on the goblin’s throat, seized his hand, and wrenched his arm out against the board. The goblin struggled and flailed, but Geth ignored his kicks and flapping arm. He grabbed a third knife. The goblin’s fingers clenched convulsively. Geth punched the blade through them and into the board, and jabbed a fist into the torturer’s belly before forcing his other hand out and impaling it too.

  Pinned on the rack, the goblin squirmed and flopped. His heels and the back of his head beat against the wood. His screaming mouth stretched so wide Geth could see the ragged root of his tongue.

  Rage threatened to give way to disgust, but memories of agony twisted in him. Vengeance for himself—for Tenquis—rose to choke him. The torturer became Tariic.

  Hot fury turned cold as death. One of the irons the goblin had used to burn him lay on the floor, smoking in Tenquis’s blood. The metal was still hot enough to sting Geth’s hand when he picked it up.

  He didn’t think the struggling goblin even saw him as he brought the heavy end of the iron down on his head. The screaming stopped after the first blow, but Geth beat the iron against the torturer’s skull until bone cracked and sagged like a half-empty wineskin. Then he turned away, hurled the bloody iron across the chamber, and raised his voice.

  “Ekhaas!”

  Ashi caught the handle of the door at the first heavy impact of body against wood and would have thrown it open if Midian hadn’t caught her arm.

  “Don’t,” he said. His face was pale.

  “Get off me!” Ashi spat at him, but Ekhaas seized her shoulders and dragged her back.

  “No,” she said. Her ears pressed against her head. “He’s right. Let Geth do what he needs to do.”

  Ashi still strained toward the door. “Geth! Geth!”

  The thin wail continued, punctuated by short thumps and Geth’s terrible snarls, only to end abruptly with the wet, pulpy crack of breaking bone. There was a clatter of metal. Geth’s snarl faded into a guttural groan—then rose in a call. “Ekhaas!”

  The hobgoblin raced to the door and pushed it open. She froze in the doorway for a moment before she stepped through and swiftly closed it after herself. This time the only thing Ashi glimpsed was Geth standing at Tenquis’s side.

  She heard him, though. His words were hoarse. “What can you do for him?”

  Ekhaas didn’t answer immediately, but then she said, “I’ll need a knife.”

  And she started to sing. The song was soft and soothing, with echoes of energy to it. Ashi could hear Geth’s voice through it, murmuring something that might be comfort and encouragement—until another voice, Tenquis’s, leaped high in a wail before trailing back into a series of sobs. Ekhaas kept singing.

  Midian gave Ashi a nudge and put a flask into her hand. “Drink?” he asked quietly. Ashi nodded and lifted the flask, though she didn’t drink from it. She could only stare at the closed door. Fabric tore in the room beyond and she could imagine a shirt or a cloak being shredded for bandages. Midian bumped her elbow, reminding her of the flask in her hand. She raised it again.

  A hand came past her and plucked it from her grasp.

  She whirled around, drawing her sword as she turned, to find Aruget putting the flask to his lips. The disguised changeling paused, unflinching in spite of the sword at his belly. “Don’t let your guard down,” he said, lowering the flask untasted. “You’re not out of danger yet.”

  Heart racing, Ashi returned her sword to its sheath. “I could have killed you.”

  “I could have killed you.” His ears flicked. “You’ve already been rescued.”

  “Twice. Vounn told me you’d be coming but Midian, then Ekhaas, got here first.”

  “I had to stop for something.” Aruget swung a sack from his shoulder and opened it so she could peer inside. Peeking out from among the muffling folds of a cloak were Geth’s great gauntlet and the hilt of Wrath. “I knew Geth wouldn’t leave without them. Tariic had them displayed as trophies in his quarters. He’ll miss them. We need to be gone before he does.”

  “You knew Geth was here too?”

  “I investigated.” He looked at Midian and nodded in cool greeting. “Saa.”

  The gnome’s eyes narrowed. His lips pressed tight together. Ashi could guess what he was thinking. “None of us would be here if we hadn’t left Midian on the roof with Makka,” she told Aruget. “He made a deal to save his life. You owe him an apology.”

  “He didn’t have to make a d
eal.” His ears pressed back. “He could have given up his life to save three.”

  “And you’d do that?” Midian asked.

  “Mazo.” Aruget’s eyes stayed on Midian but he turned his face toward Ashi. “I told you he’d be able to care of himself, didn’t I?”

  Ashi ground her teeth. “Apologize to—”

  The door of the torture chamber opened. Ekhaas emerged first. Her red-brown face was drawn and her amber eyes haunted.

  Geth and Tenquis followed, the tiefling leaning so heavily on the shifter that Geth might as well have been carrying him. Blood spattered Geth, matting the patchy, half-burned hair of his bare chest. Tenquis shook with every step as if his legs might give out under him. His dark face was ash-pale and carried a sheen of sweat. His golden eyes were dull and seemed to stare off into some private nightmare. Breath came in shudders. His clothes—shirt, leather pants, labyrinth-patterned vest—hung awkwardly on his body, as if someone else had dressed him. They were mostly clean, though. No blood soaked through to betray an injury. His face was bruised and scraped as if a coarse gag had been bound into his mouth, but that was all. Geth seemed to have suffered more. For a moment, Ashi wondered what had been done to him or if Ekhaas’s magic had somehow healed him of any wound.

  Then she realized that where the tiefling’s long, sinuous tail should have been was only a thick, bandaged stump.

  Geth’s mouth was set in a hard line. His gaze fell on Aruget. “He knows everything,” Ashi said quickly, but Geth didn’t seem to hear her. His eyes settled on Midian. He shifted Tenquis’s weight onto Ekhaas and went to the gnome, dropping to his knees in front of him. Midian had two vials of pale blue liquid ready in his hands—the healing potions he had mentioned, Ashi guessed—but Geth ignored them.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said hoarsely. “And I’m sorry about it. On the night that Ekhaas, Dagii, and I went to see Tenquis, Chetiin found us.”

  Ashi stiffened. “You’ve seen Chetiin?” She looked to Ekhaas, but the duur’kala was watching Geth and Midian, her ears flicking rapidly. Aruget’s hand grasped her arm, urging her to silence. Geth’s attention was entirely on Midian, whose eyes, in turn, were darting rapidly between each of them.

  Geth continued without even a pause, as if he was determined to speak his piece before they left the dungeon. “He convinced us that you were actually the one behind Haruuc’s assassination”—Ashi couldn’t hold back a gasp, but Geth still didn’t stop—“and that it was a shaarat’khesh assassin you hired who pretended to be Chetiin. I thought I found evidence that confirmed it, but I was wrong.” He half-turned his head to speak over his shoulder. “Ekhaas, Chetiin lied to us. He was supposed to go with you and Dagii to fight the Valenar, but he stayed in Rhukaan Draal.” The shifter stood. He turned to look at all of them, fury twisting his face. “On the day of Tariic’s coronation, when I rushed up to my chambers, I caught him in the middle of stealing the true Rod of Kings. He betrayed us again!”

  Midian’s eyes opened wide. Aruget stood frozen. Ashi’s stomach felt like it had turned over inside her. “So Chetiin has the Rod of Kings now?”

  Geth bared his teeth and nodded. He might have added something, but Ekhaas spoke first. Her ears went back and she said, “Geth, Chetiin did fight with us.”

  “He stole the rod! I saw him!”

  “He was with us!” Ekhaas insisted. “He’s with me now—he’s standing guard outside the dungeon!”

  “He’s here,” said the shaarat’khesh elder’s strained voice. All of them turned to follow it. Chetiin crouched at the foot of the stairs, a dagger in his hand, and his black eyes glittering. Ashi’s stomach flipped again.

  “You!” Geth roared—and charged at the goblin.

  Chetiin slid aside, flattening himself against the wall. Geth sprawled past him, twisted around, and came back up. The terrible, savage growl was back. Chetiin kept his back to a wall, dagger ready. “I did what you asked,” he said tightly. “I went with Ekhaas and Dagii. I kept them safe.”

  “Liar,” Geth snarled. “Traitor!”

  “He was with us,” Ekhaas said again. “He couldn’t have stolen the rod!”

  Geth paced forward, stalking Chetiin. The old goblin held his ground. “Then maybe he did what he accused Midian of doing,” said Geth. “Maybe he hired another of the shaarat’khesh to do the job while he went with you as a cover!”

  “Or maybe,” said Aruget, “Chetiin was right the first time he approached you.”

  His heavy accent had vanished again, but Ashi wasn’t certain anyone else noticed it. All eyes went to Aruget, then followed his to Midian.

  The gnome looked shocked, then his expression drew together in anger. “That’s impossible! I wouldn’t do something like that—and even if I did, where’s this shaarat’khesh I’m supposed to have hired?”

  “Dead,” said Chetiin. “Silenced so he couldn’t give you away and the assassination would be laid solely on me.”

  “And I just hired another to steal the rod.” Midian pointed at Chetiin. “He’s trying to turn you against me again! Would the shaarat’khesh agree to work with me a second time if I’d already turned on one of them?”

  “There was no shaarat’khesh,” Aruget said calmly

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  3 Aryth

  Pain and fury seethed in Geth. Pain from the burns inflicted on him. Fury at what had been done to Tenquis. Fury and pain both for Chetiin’s treachery, as fresh and hot as if the rod had just been stolen or if Haruuc were newly struck down. The goblin torturer was dead, though, and with every breath, Geth promised himself that soon Chetiin would be, too.

  But Aruget’s words broke through the rush of blood that roared in his ears. “There was no shaarat’khesh.”

  If there was no shaarat’khesh involved in Midian’s scheme, that meant …

  He looked at Midian again.

  On the night they had first gone to see Tenquis, Ekhaas had used magic to disguise Geth as a hobgoblin woman. Midian’s pack and pouches were filled with strange and useful magical devices—one of them might easily have been capable of disguising a gnome as a goblin. The two races were about the same size and Midian was an excellent mimic. He fought well too. Surprisingly well for a scholar, even an adventurous one.

  Geth thought back to the day he had investigated Chetiin’s room and confirmed that there was a ledge above the fireplace, just as the goblin had said. He’d encountered Midian in the hall afterward. He’d thought then that Midian hadn’t noticed the soot smudge on his face, but what if he had? The gnome could have investigated Chetiin’s room and discovered that the supposedly dead shaarat’khesh elder was no longer where he’d been left. Midian would have realized that at least part of his plot had been uncovered. He would have had to act. But no …

  “It’s not possible,” he said. “Midian wasn’t in Rhukaan Draal when Haruuc was assassinated.”

  “Whose word do you have for that?” asked Aruget.

  “The coin he brought back to Ekhaas from Bloodrun—”

  “—could have come from anywhere,” Ekhaas said, her voice low. “The messenger we sent to Bloodrun to fetch him supposedly died of dust fever, didn’t he? What if he didn’t?”

  The gnome made no reaction to the accusations. His face was expressionless.

  Ashi spoke up. “I saw you at the beginning of the coronation ceremony,” she said to Midian, “but not later. Afterward when I talked to you about what happened there, you said you didn’t see anything because your view was blocked. But you didn’t stay, did you? You made sure I saw you, then you left to disguise yourself again and steal the rod.”

  Midian’s silence was hard to ignore. He damned himself with it. He kept very still, back against a wall. There was a tension in him Geth hadn’t seen before, like a blade ground so keen the touch of a whetstone would break it.

  “Why?” Geth asked him.

  A cold smile split Midian’s face—and he sprang into sudden motion. One
hand hurled the potion vials at Chetiin and Geth. The other whipped a knife, the blade stained black, from his belt as he leaped at Aruget.

  A bad feeling about those vials gripped Geth. He stuck out his hands and dived for them, snatching them out of the air as gently as he could. Aruget swung a bulky sack up at Midian, but the gnome ducked around it with astonishing speed. His knife slashed, forcing Aruget back, then he was past him and running for the stairs. Ashi ran after him. Ekhaas shifted Tenquis so he leaned against the wall, and drew breath, ready to sing a spell at the fleeing gnome.

  It was Chetiin who caught him, though. The goblin’s movement was as fast as a thrown knife. He bounded past Geth and actually seemed to run along the wall itself for several steps before launching himself at Midian. His arms wrapped around the gnome’s legs and brought him down. Midian’s knife flashed, but Chetiin twisted and the blade struck stone. Then Aruget was at his side, tearing the knife from Midian’s grasp and pinning both wrists with one large hand. Chetiin rolled free, grabbed the fallen knife, and held the stained blade to the gnome’s throat.

  Midian went still, as if he knew further struggles were useless. His eyes were like chips of glass. He glared up at Aruget. “Dark Lantern?” he asked.

  Aruget’s ears flicked as he hauled the gnome upright. He nodded to Geth. “Good catch. I doubt you would have wanted to drink—or breathe—those potions.” The hobgoblin looked to Ashi. “Or Midian’s wine. I don’t think you were intended to survive your rescue.”

  “He called you a Dark Lantern,” said Chetiin. The captured knife didn’t waver, but Geth saw the goblin steal a glance at Aruget. “You’re an agent of Breland?”

  “You can trust him, Chetiin,” said Ashi. “He’s a friend.” She caught Geth’s eye, then Ekhaas’s, and added, “An old friend.”

  An old friend? Geth thought of the only other Brelish agent he’d ever known—the half-elf, Benti Morren. He glanced at Ashi and silently mouthed Benti’s name. Ashi nodded. Geth turned back to Aruget in confusion but the hobgoblin only held up a hand.