Don Bassingthwaite - Word of traitors

“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. “Give 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.”