Don Bassingthwaite - Word of traitors

“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 words 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.”

Keraal stared up at him for a moment, then stood with a rattling of chains. “The honor of the Gan’duur will last beyond my death. The Gan’duur starved Rhukaan Draal and eluded all the troops that Haruuc Shaarat’kor sent against us.”

“All except the last,” Dagii said grimly, “and that’s how I want my victory remembered: a triumph over a strong enemy. But I promise you that if Keraal of Gan’duur dies without fighting in the arena, then all that Darguun remembers of the Gan’duur will be a warlord who passed from life as a coward. It would be better for your legacy if you had died in agony on the grieving tree.”

The dead look had left Keraal’s eyes. They were bright and angry, and his chest heaved with each breath. Tariic let out a furious hiss. “Dagii!” he said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“He reminds me that I owe muut to my clan even if I no longer have a clan, even if I no longer have atcha.” Keraal straightened and turned to face Munta. “I will fight in the arena.”

Munta nodded again, slowly and with a look of approval on his face.

Tariic’s features twisted with frustration, however. “And if he wins, he walks free? What kind of punishment is that for my uncle’s enemy?”

Geth felt a strange pressure creep into his mind, a vague memory that wasn’t his own, and shivered. He recognized the sensation: it was Wrath. This was what Haruuc had experienced and what had almost driven him mad. The Sword of Heroes had been created to protect and inspire, though, not to command. Geth pushed it away-and it retreated, but not without leaving an idea behind.

“He won’t fight just any fight,” Geth said. “He’ll fight a battle each day. If he wins all of them, he wins his freedom.”

Tariic spun around to give him an ugly look, but Keraal stood tall and nodded. “I accept these conditions,” he said.