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

  It also still felt almost new when compared to any other fortress Geth had been in. Most were many decades—or even many centuries—old, their stones worn and stained. The stones of Khaar Mbar’ost, however, still had the sharp corners put on them by masons’ chisels. Their surfaces were dry and clean. In places where the odor of living hadn’t permeated the air, Geth sometimes thought he could still smell the dusty, fresh-cut stone.

  Even the dungeons sunk into the rock beneath the fortress still had a crisp new feel to them, though they smelled nearly as bad as Geth had expected. It felt strange to step into an almost pristine corridor lit by everbright lanterns while grubby faces peered through the barred windows cut into the cell doors on either side, the interiors of the cells lost in stinking darkness.

  The noise that the prisoners made was startling as well, echoing in the closed space until it seemed as loud as the crowd in the arena. Prisoners yelped and cursed as they fought to get a look out at those who had descended to their world: Geth, Munta the Gray, Tariic, and a large number of guards. Geth had left the Rod of Kings in his chamber, locked safely away and with guards posted outside the door. It felt good to be rid of it for a time. He looked back at the prisoners and tried to guess how many were packed into each cell. “It’s crowded,” he said in halting Goblin.

  The dungeon keeper, a big hobgoblin with numerous scars and only one ear, looked at him blankly. Geth had to repeat himself twice more, speaking carefully, until he was understood and the scarred hobgoblin grumbled a response that Wrath’s magic translated perfectly and instantly.

  “We’ve been keeping them for a while instead of enacting punishment. Bringing them in from across the city.” He strode up to one of the cells. The prisoners inside backed away as the keeper ran through a catalogue of crimes. “The usual thieves and murderers stupid enough to get caught. Cheats. Profiteers who tried to get rich when the Gan’duur raids starved the city. Rioters. Taat caught violating the terms of mourning—”

  “Mercy!” came a shout from one of the cells. There was a commotion and a human face pressed up against the bars of the window. The man looked like he had been beaten. He spoke better Goblin than Geth. “I needed light! It was only a lamp!”

  A guard’s club hit the bars and the human jumped back. “The terms of mourning applied to everyone!” roared the keeper. “You disrespected Haruuc. Now you have another chance to honor him!” He looked to Geth, who clenched his teeth and gave a nod to Munta.

  The old warlord stepped forward as if what he were about to do came as naturally as rallying troops. “Condemned! Be glad! In the tradition of the People and in memory of Haruuc Shaarat’kor, you are given the chance to win your freedom. The games wait for you.” He paused, letting his words settle into the prisoners. “Win in the arena and your crimes are forgiven!”

  The dungeon filled with a new cacophony that almost made Geth cringe back. Many of the voices raised in the cells proclaimed an eagerness to see the arena. Only a few, mostly non-goblins it seemed to Geth, begged for an alternative. Munta came back to him. “Just as I told you,” he said with confidence. “Offer a dar the chance to die before a crowd and he’ll take it.”

  Geth nodded numbly. At last count, over five hundred combatants had signed up of their own free will to fight in the games, but the arena was hungry. Letting prisoners fight for their freedom was an ancient tradition. He’d tried telling himself that most of them would have died for their crimes anyway—Darguun’s few laws carried harsh punishments—but there was still something that seemed deeply wrong about forcing them to fight for the amusement of the crowds. And yet, as Munta said, many of the prisoners were eager to take the chance.

  “Who first?” asked the keeper.

  There were six big cells, as if the builders of Khaar Mbar’ost had foreseen the need of the games. Geth pointed at the cell whose occupants seemed most enthusiastic for the fight.

  The keeper and the guards descended on the cell like vultures on carrion. A few prisoners tried to rush the door when it was opened, but the guards’ clubs beat them down and they were first to be locked into a long chain of shackles. Guards began pulling other prisoners out one by one, adding them to the line, while those in the other cells whooped and yelled.

  As the gang was assembled, Tariic stood ready, giving each prisoner a swift inspection. He had a goblin with him as an assistant, and the little creature crept forward to swipe green paint onto the leg of those Tariic indicated. The first prisoner, a mangy bugbear still dazed from the guards’ clubs, tried to kick him away. The goblin squealed and jumped back. Tariic planted himself in front of the bugbear, hand on sword, and glared up at him.

  “Take the mark and you get a weapon in the arena. No mark, no weapon. Understand?”

  The bugbear’s lips curled back from his teeth.

  Tariic shrugged. “No weapon.” He pointed at the next prisoner in line, a hobgoblin. “You get his weapon. All you have to do is dedicate the fight to me—Tariic of Rhukaan Taash—if you win.”

  The hobgoblin stuck out his leg eagerly. Other prisoners did the same, though Tariic had the goblin mark only the strongest-looking of them. The bugbear at the front of the chain began to look like he regretted his decision.

  “Clever,” murmured Munta. “The audience in the arena will remember this, and any of these scum who survive will tell the story. The other potential heirs are going to copy this.”

  “They won’t be able to,” Geth said. “Tariic paid a heavy bribe to the keeper for the privilege.”

  There were fifteen prisoners shackled together now. Most seemed ready for, or at least resigned to, the arena. A few struggled and pleaded with the guards as they were pulled from the cell. The human who had called out for mercy. An elf woman dressed in rags that had once been quite fine. A hobgoblin who cradled one arm to his chest and looked feverish and ill. A dwarf who glared at the guards surrounding him, thick fists opening and closing in barely restrained anger. Tariic made sure he got a stripe of paint.

  “They don’t want to go,” said Geth.

  Munta’s ears flicked. “They don’t have a choice. Don’t interfere, Geth.”

  The shifter ground his teeth together and held his silence—until a guard emerged from the cell leading the last of the prisoners. Geth’s breath burst out of him. “Grandmother Wolf, no. That’s enough.”

  The final prisoner was an elderly goblin woman, so hunched and wizened that she stood no taller than Geth’s thigh. He wasn’t sure that she would have been able to walk easily on her own without the guard’s support. She looked up at his outburst and he saw that her eyes were milky. Geth fought back a growl and turned to Munta. “She’s not going. She doesn’t stand a chance. What’s she even doing in here?”

  Munta looked to the keeper, repeating Geth’s words in Goblin. The keeper grunted. “She led a famine march during the Gan’duur raids. Her followers damaged the Bloody Market.”

  “A famine march is a rite of the Dark Six,” Munta said. “Marchers make sacrifices to the Devourer in an attempt to ward off further suffering.”

  “I saw the march, Geth,” said Tariic. “I remember Haruuc’s anger at it. He ordered her thrown into the dungeons.”

  “He didn’t order her to fight in the arena, did he?” He faced Tariic. “How will the audience react to that? An old woman in the arena?”

  Tariic’s ears went back, but after a moment he nodded. Geth glanced at Munta. The old warlord frowned but nodded as well. Geth went over and knelt before the goblin woman. “Old mother,” he said in Goblin, “what is your name?”

  “Pradoor.” Her voice was sharp and shrill. She reached out a gnarled hand and put it on his face, feeling his features. Her big ears twitched and her mouth curled in recognition. “So, shifter—am I going to the arena to honor one who turned his back on the gods of the Six?”

  The confidence in her sharp voice almost took him aback, but he shook his head. “No. You’re going free.” He looked up at the guard who held her. “Gi
ve her food and take her out of Khaar Mbar’ost.”

  His words opened a floodgate. Abruptly all of the prisoners who had been struggling to stay out of the arena—as well as those who now saw the possibility of release—were calling out to him.

  “Me, shifter! Release me!”

  “I don’t stand a chance!”

  “Look at me!”

  “Have mercy!”

  Some of the harsher goblin prisoners just laughed. A few of the cries for help ended in sharps gasps of pain and more urgent, realistic cries as those in the cell were dragged down and shown just how little of a chance they stood. The keeper and some of the guards started banging on the cell doors. Geth clenched his jaw and made sure Pradoor and the guard escorting her got out of the dungeon and started the climb up the stairs leading to the fortress above. He didn’t look at Munta, Tariic, or the keeper, and he did his best to ignore the slowly dying pleas for aid.

  Then one shout cut through the din. “Hey—brother! Here!”

  The voice had a distinctive gravelly roughness, the accent of Geth’s own home in the Eldeen Reaches. He turned around in time to see a shifter clinging to the bars of one door, struggling to get his attention while holding off the jeering prisoners who shared his cell. Wide animal eyes met Geth’s own. “Let me go, brother,” the other shifter pleaded. “Or at least make sure I get a sharp weapon for the arena!”

  “Quiet, you!” said the keeper, slamming a fist onto the fingers that gripped the bars.

  The shifter held on, though. Geth charged across the dungeon hall and grabbed the keeper’s arm as he raised it again. “You didn’t say there was a shifter here!” he said.

  “There isn’t.” The keeper tried to shake himself free but Geth hung on. “This taat is a changeling.”

  “No! He’s wrong!” protested the prisoner. “I’m a shifter like you, brother!”

  A hand inside the cell stopped trying to pull the shifter away and instead slammed his head forward against the bars. The shifter jerked and sagged. A big hobgoblin pushed him aside and peered out. “I’ve been in this cell for seven days. Until just now, there was no shifter here.” The hobgoblin dragged the shifter upright. “He’s a gaa’ma.”

  Gaa’ma—a wax baby, the Goblin term for changeling. Geth let his hand drop from the keeper’s arm and the scarred hobgoblin snorted. “I told you. His name’s Ko. He’s the changeling who tried to kidnap the envoy of House Deneith by murdering one of her guards and taking his place.”

  “Shifter …” the prisoner said feebly, but the accent of the Eldeen had slipped.

  Geth stared at him, surprise quickening the beat of his heart. The changeling who had tried to kidnap Vounn. If anyone could provide the evidence that would link Daavn of Marhaan to the plot and show Tariic just what kind of serpent he was dealing with, it might be this Ko.

  “Take him out,” said Geth. “Put him in the empty cell. He’s not going to the arena.”

  The storm that command produced made his sparing of Pradoor seem like the smallest act of charity. Howls of outrage sprang from the other prisoners—and from the guards, who this time did nothing to silence their charges. Munta and Tariic both came forward to press Geth. The big hobgoblin prisoner who still held Ko bellowed in anger. “You’re sparing this cowardly piece of filth?”

  He punctuated his words by driving Ko against the door of the cell with bone-shaking force, forcing gasps out of his captive. The thick hair on Geth’s arms and on the back of his neck rose. The hand that gripped Wrath’s hilt tightened and he wrenched the sword free of its sheath. “Silence!” he roared in Goblin, thrusting the weapon high.

  When she had first seen the sword, before she had guessed at its true nature as the Sword of Heroes, Ekhaas had proclaimed it a lhesh shaarat, a blade so fine that any descendant of Dhakaan instinctively recognized it as a weapon of kings and warlords. Just the act of drawing a lhesh shaarat proclaimed the wielder’s might.

  Wrath didn’t have the power of the Rod of Kings to force obedience, but it could command respect.

  Silence fell over the dungeon. The big hobgoblin released his hold on Ko, who slid down out of sight. Geth gestured to the keeper with Wrath. “Get him out of there.”

  The keeper moved to obey him.

  “What are you doing, Geth?” Munta asked softly. “You can’t keep all the prisoners from the arena.”

  “He might know something about Vounn’s kidnapping.”

  “He’s been questioned,” said Tariic. “A hobgoblin in a mask and using a false name hired him. We know that was Keraal. The changeling has outlived his usefulness.”

  Geth wanted to ask how Tariic could be certain the masked hobgoblin had really been Keraal, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “He tried to hurt a friend.”

  “Then send him to the arena,” Munta said. “You’re causing unrest!”

  The keeper had the cell door open. Waving his club to keep those inside back, he kicked and dragged Ko clear. Geth stood over the battered prisoner and looked down at him. Ko’s eyelids flickered, then his face seemed to blur and run. A shifter’s dark hair turned pale, animal eyes became blank and white. His features grew soft and strangely ill-defined, his skin turned a dusky gray, and his body became a little taller and a little leaner. The scrapes and bruises on his face didn’t disappear, though. “Thank you,” he said, his voice thick.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” said Geth. He turned to the keeper. “Watch him. I’ll be back to talk with him when I can.”

  The scarred hobgoblin grumbled something under his breath but grabbed Ko by the front of his shirt and shoved him into the recently emptied cell. The other prisoners jeered and grumbled again. The keeper slammed the door on Ko, then pointed at the chain of prisoners destined for the arena that day. “Take them away!” he ordered the guards. His eyes swept the other cells. “You shut your mouths. You’ll all have your turns.”

  The prisoners just laughed and shook the cell doors. The keeper’s remaining ear went back flat. “No food tonight, then! Maybe you’ll fight better on empty bellies!”

  “Nicely done,” Tariic whispered in Geth’s ear. “You’re right. You aren’t much of a talker.”

  Geth didn’t answer that, sliding Wrath back into its sheath instead. “Are we done?”

  “I wish we were,” said Munta. “There’s one more prisoner we need to see.” He gave Geth a hard look. “Don’t pardon him.”

  Keraal had a small cell to himself. The defeated rebel sat on a heap of straw, arms restrained by a length of chain running through rings set into the wall, and stared at them with dead eyes as they entered. He still wore only the loincloth in which he had been led into Haruuc’s throneroom. His red-brown skin was covered in tiny, freshly healed scars—the marks of the grieving tree. Geth waited for him to say something, but Keraal didn’t speak. After a long moment, the former warlord of the Gan’duur clan lowered his head, and his face disappeared behind thick, dark hair.

  “The problem is what to do with him,” said Munta in the human tongue. “He should already be dead, killed on the grieving tree, but Haruuc’s final words spared him.”

  “Haruuc’s final words saved Dagii,” Geth said. “They just happened to set Keraal free at the same time.” He looked down at Keraal. The hobgoblin was entirely broken. Keraal had fought against a lhesh he thought had gone too far in seeking the acceptance of human nations—and been crushed when Haruuc actually became the ruthless warlord Keraal had sought. Geth hardened his heart. “We can’t return him to the grieving tree,” he said. “Haruuc was the only one who knew the words that controlled it. Without them, it’s only so much stone.”

  He thought he saw Keraal’s ears, protruding through his lank hair, tremble in relief at the news, a movement so slight it could have been his imagination. Secretly Geth was glad the words had been lost as well. The tree might be a Dhakaani artifact, but it was a device for torture and slow death.

  Munta also shook his head at mention of the tree. “Even if we knew the wo
rds we couldn’t use them for the same reason this gaa’taat is still alive,” the old hobgoblin said heavily. “By tradition, when a warlord spares an enemy, no one under his command may seek his death. Haruuc may not have intended to spare Keraal, but he did. Yet tradition also holds that all prisoners in a warlord’s stronghold face their judgment in the arena.”

  The glance he gave Geth was harsh, and the shifter felt heat spread across his face. “Why not send him to the arena, then?” he asked.

  “A prisoner who wins in the arena walks free,” said Tariic. “As much as the people would love to see Keraal forced to fight, do you want him to have his freedom?”

  “Put me in the arena and let me die there.”

  Tariic actually jumped at Keraal’s sudden words. The chained hobgoblin raised his head and looked at them all. His voice was as flat and dead as his eyes. He spoke in the human language. “What reason is there for me to live? The warriors of my clan rot in trees along the road to Rhukaan Draal. The women and children have been sold into slavery. I am alive by chance. The Gan’duur are destroyed. My clan paid the price for my arrogance. I failed them. Chiit gath’muut. Chiit gath’atcha. Chiit gath’piir.”

  I am without duty. I am without honor. I have nothing.

  Geth looked at Munta and Tariic. Munta nodded. “It is decided.”

  Tariic’s ears bent. “The people won’t like it if he doesn’t fight back.”

  A growl escaped Keraal. “Do I care what the people think? Give me a sword and I will fall on it in front of them. Will they find amusement in that?”

  “If you give yourself a coward’s death, then you will truly be without muut or atcha.” A shadow fell across the light that entered the cell from the hall outside. Geth looked over his shoulder to find Dagii standing in the doorway, his face hard and his gray eyes narrow. “The Gan’duur fought hard—I know this because I fought them. They followed you willingly. Let yourself die cheaply and what pride remains in the name of the Gan’duur will die with you.” His ears rose tall. “My victory over you will have no meaning.”