Don Bassingthwaite - The tyranny of ghosts

One of the hobgoblins crowed in victory and swept up a small heap of copper coins and shiny odds and ends. Bugbears and hobgoblins thumped their chests at each other. Tooth stood up, and Ekhaas saw that he was surprisingly short for a bugbear, no taller than she was. He was massively muscled through the shoulders and chest, though, and when he picked up a belt from which two broad-bladed grinders dangled, she could easily picture him wielding the tools as weapons.

“You want to talk to me,” he said.

A statement, not a question. Ekhaas took the lead. “Yes,” she said. “Do you speak the human tongue?”

Tooth glanced at Geth and Tenquis, then said in that language, “I do.”

“Good.” They’d decided there was no need to reveal the magic in Wrath unless they had to. “We want to hire a guide to take us into the Khraal.”

He must have already assessed and judged them as fit to venture into the jungle because he didn’t hesitate before asking, “Where exactly?”

Ekhaas found an empty table and gestured for him to sit down. Tooth joined them without comment. Ekhaas leaned forward, dropping her voice. “Have you heard of the ruins of a place called Suud Anshaar?”

With generations of mothers using it to frighten their children, the name of Tasaam Draet was common enough among the Dhakaani clans. The tales of his downfall and haunted fortress were more esoteric, though, and Ekhaas didn’t know how well the legends might be known among the lowland Darguuls.

Tooth just narrowed his eyes. He looked like he might spit. “The Wailing Hill,” he said. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. I’ve never laid eyes on it, but hunters tell stories.”

“You know where it is?”

“I know to stay away from it. Anything that howls when it shouldn’t is warning you not to get any closer.” Ekhaas thought he might sit back, then, and declare their conversation over. But he didn’t. “They say people have come looking for it before. Hunters take them in-good hunters who know the Khraal-but nobody comes out. Packs of varags live in that part of the jungle, and they don’t go near the place.”

“What are varags?” asked Geth.

“Savages related to hobgoblins the way shifters are related to lycanthropes,” said Tooth. “Completely fearless-usually.”

“When was the last time someone came looking for Suud Anshaar?” Ekhaas asked.

Tooth shrugged. “Before Lhesh Haruuc, before Arthuun belonged to us. Back when humans picked at the edge of the Khraal.” He looked them over again. “If you want to go there, it will cost you.”

“You’ll take us?” said Tenquis. “After all that?”

A grin showed all of Tooth’s sharp teeth. “Hunters tell stories. If I get you there and come back, I’ll be a legend.” He lowered his voice. “This is my deal: For what you pay me, I swear by Balinor’s blood to take you to Suud Anshaar, but I’m not going in. I’ll wait for you, guide you back, but if you don’t come out of the ruins, I’m leaving.”

Ekhaas understood immediately. If Tooth returned from Suud Anshaar-even if it was as the sole survivor of a doomed expedition-his reputation would be made. She looked to the others. Chetiin and Tenquis nodded, the tiefling a little more slowly than the goblin. Geth grinned.

“I like him,” he said with a nod at Tooth.

“Agreed then,” said Ekhaas.

Tooth’s grin grew even wider. “Good. Now let’s talk about how much I’ll charge you-”

“We’re inflexible on that,” said Chetiin. He held out a small fist. “But I believe this should do.” He opened his fingers to reveal three sparkling straw-colored topazes.

During their journey across Darguun, they’d realized that while they had some money between them, it wasn’t enough to persuade a guide to take them deep into the jungle in search of cursed ruins. Fortunately, Chetiin had the answer. Unraveling the stitching of his belt, he’d revealed a tiny, portable treasure. “For emergencies,” he’d said as he sewed the leather back up.

The grin on Tooth’s face faltered, his eyes going wide in its place. Chetiin closed his fingers again. “When do we leave?” he asked. “Sooner is better.”

Rain came down heavy on a night as black as a traitor’s soul. Deep eaves shielded the windows of the Talenta Hospitality, letting cool air circulate into the busy common room. Lanudo’s guests for the night had finally abandoned the dubious shelter of the open-air taverns for somewhere a little more protected-the halfling circulated through the crowd, making certain that the guests whose rooms leaked worse than usual got extra beer. Sufficiently drunk, they wouldn’t mind the additional damp in their beds.

He happened to be near the door when it opened to admit two figures. Late for travelers, Lanudo thought, but he’d never turned away potential guests before-and on such a miserable night, he could charge extra for a corner in the common room. He turned to greet them.

The greeting caught on his tongue.

The bigger of the two figures was a bugbear, bareheaded to the rain and looking as if he’d barely noticed the storm. There was a sprawling scar on his chest, a crude outline of a woman with the tail of a snake and outstretched wings. The sign of the Fury.

The smaller figure wore a magewrought cloak that shed water like a duck’s back. Lanudo expected to find a goblin underneath, but the figure threw back the cloak’s hood to reveal the smiling, nut-brown face of a gnome. Bright eyes fixed on him.

“Ah, innkeep,” said the gnome. “Tell me you can spare us going back out on a night like this. My name is Midian Mit Davandi, historian to the court of Lhesh Tariic Kurar’taarn. We’re trying to catch up to some colleagues: a hobgoblin duur’kala, a shifter, a tiefling, and a goblin mounted on a black worg. Quite a distinctive group. I wonder if you might have seen them.”

The gnome’s manner was friendly, and a lilt in his voice implied that Lanudo would be doing him a huge favor by helping him locate his friends. Lanudo’s gut told him differently. Midian’s bright eyes were hard with a sharp cunning. His smile was cold. The bugbear didn’t smile at all. One hand gripped the shaft of a heavy trident, fingers rubbing the wood. The other hand rested on his belt, uncomfortably close to a dangling clump of reddish hair and orange-brown flesh. It came to Lanudo that he’d been in Arthuun too long if he was able to recognize the scalp of a hobgoblin on sight.

He doubted very much if the gnome and the bugbear were merely trying to catch up with their “colleagues.” A better man than him might have tried to throw them off the trail.

A better man than him wouldn’t have lived long in Arthuun.

“You’ve missed them,” he said. “They stayed a night but rode out two days ago, heading into the Khraal. They didn’t say anything about where they were going in front of me, but they hired a guide, a hunter named Tooth. When he met them here, he looked like he was ready for a substantial expedition. If you want to know more than that, you should go to a tavern called the Rat’s Tail and ask there about what Tooth was up to.”

Midian raised his eyebrows. “Refreshing honesty. I appreciate that. Would the Rat’s Tail still be open tonight? No? How are your rooms, then?”

“Leaky and wet,” Lanudo said bluntly, “but I’ll give you the same rooms your colleagues stayed in if you want to search them.”

“Splendid,” said Midian. “How much?”

Lanudo charged him the same he would have on a dry night and, as the pair of them went upstairs, resolved to sleep in the bed of the handcart that the cooper three doors down kept behind his shop. Just to be safe.

12 Vult

A week after they left Arthuun, they heard the first shrieks in the night. Ekhaas sat beside their small fire and listened to the screams and wails as they rolled back and forth in the darkness. The jungle played tricks with distance. With rare exceptions, when a ridge or outcropping rose above the canopy and gave them a view of the green horizon, their world was limited to a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty paces in any direction. The shrieks had the same thin quality as distant thunder, but they could have been much closer.