Don Bassingthwaite - Word of traitors

Ekhaas held her horse still in the middle of the street as Dagii and his tiger came within a few paces of her, then turned around and went back the other way. She might as well have been invisible.

She knew the singer, even if she didn’t know the song. Looking around, she found her. Senen Dhakaan had pressed herself into a deep doorway. She met Ekhaas’s eyes and nodded. When Dagii had passed her again, she left off singing-though the song seemed to linger-and hurried to Ekhaas’s side.

“I’m sorry for Ashi’s death,” she said.

Ekhaas bit back her anger. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw you enter the plaza. When you left your horses at the street, I guessed this would be the way you’d leave. I slipped away before you attacked.” Senen’s ears flicked. “So the Rod of Kings commands obedience.”

“Aruget told you,” Ekhaas said. The changeling’s name tasted like dirt in her mouth.

“I guessed it just now. When the real Tariic appeared, your tiefling friend fled the plaza and covered his ears. I did the same.” She glanced at Dagii, still caught by her magic, then up at Ekhaas. “You’ll be an outlaw now. You should have told me everything. I could have helped you.”

Ekhaas bared her teeth. “This isn’t the time, Senen.”

“I know.” Senen stepped back. “A duur’kala should listen as much as she sings. I’ve been listening in Khaar Mbar’ost. Find refuge in Volaar Draal, Ekhaas. Take a message to Tuura Dhakaan: there should be no alliance. Lhesh Tariic Kurar’taarn will not be a friend to the Kech Volaar.”

“I don’t think Tariic will be a friend to anybody,” said Ekhaas. “What the rod shows him will destroy Darguun.”

“The vaults of Volaar Draal are deep.” Senen nodded toward Dagii and his tiger. “The song will fade soon. Ride now!”

She turned away without waiting for a response and vanished into an alley. Ekhaas realized that her hands, even clenched into fists, were trembling. She looked at Dagii one last time, then turned her horse and urged it back to a fast trot.

Tenquis, Geth, and Chetiin hadn’t followed her instructions. They’d stopped just around the next bend in the street and as she rode up, they fell in beside her. “Well?” growled Geth.

“We have a hiding place.”

“What good’s hiding?”

“It keeps us alive,” said Tenquis.

“Ashi’s dead,” Geth snapped at him, “and Tariic has the rod.”

Ekhaas looked up at the red bulk of Khaar Mbar’ost. The sun was settling into the west and it lit the fortress of the lhesh up like a pyre. A pyre for Darguun and Haruuc’s lost dream. She looked back to Geth, her ears pressed flat. “We’ll find a way to take it away from him.”

3 Aryth

Makka’s howl came so suddenly that what followed seemed like a blur to Ashi. The spinning of the world as she turned to meet his attack. The bright blade of her sword plunging at her. Vounn stepping into its path, trying to deflect it.

The shock as Makka’s blow drove Vounn’s body into Ashi’s and the sword through both of them. The sudden blossoming of pain-sharp metal into flesh, falling body against wood, body against body against metal against wood. Darkness swam across her vision, and Ashi cried out.

When her vision cleared, she was looking into Vounn’s eyes. She managed three words.

“That was stupid.”

Vounn’s lips twitched. “Our lives belong to Deneith,” she said, her voice wheezing in her throat, “but some things are bigger than the house. You were… right about Tariic.” One of her hands found Ashi’s where they held her. “I’m proud of you, Ash-ah.”

Her words ended in a sigh and bubbling blood.

Darkness swarmed over Ashi and dragged her down.

She smelled incense and heard prayers, too soft to hear the words but loud enough to recognize the language. Goblin. She could feel something warm and dry on her forehead-and something cold along her belly, right where there should have been searing pain.

The prayers faded into silence and someone coughed. The warm, dry thing on her forehead-a small hand-moved away. “She’ll live,” said Pradoor’s shrill voice. “So will the other one.”

“Good.” Tariic’s voice, hard and angry. “Get one of the gnomes from the House Sivis outpost here. I need to send a message to Breven d’Deneith in Karrlakton.”

Ashi opened her eyes to the bulk of Khaar Mbar’ost against a twilight sky. A silhouette moved over her. Tariic.

She bared her teeth and tried to grab at him, but her arms moved less than a handspan. Ropes cut into her wrists. Tariic held out the Rod of Kings. “Be still!”

The command skittered over the shield of her dragonmark. “Blood in your mouth,” she snarled at him. She raised her head. She was still on the platform before the gates of Khaar Mbar’ost, though the plaza was empty now.

Dagii stood at her feet, standing stiffly in the presence of the lhesh, but his ears flicked a little when he met her eyes and his mouth twitched.

Makka crouched next to him, kneeling, yet at the same time almost straining to stand upright. Ashi recognized the power of the rod and allowed herself a little smile. She looked back up at Tariic. “Where’s Vounn?”

Tariic flicked his ears and gestured to her right with the rod. Ashi turned her head-and caught her breath. Vounn lay rolled onto her side just a few paces away from her. Her eyes were wide and staring, the wound inflicted by the Deneith honor blade gaping and ugly in her belly. The sword itself lay beside her, bright blade still stained with blood.

Pradoor had said “the other one” would live too. Who? Ashi twisted her head to the other side, wondering who else had survived, dreading the possible sight of more friends dead.

Midian’s bright blue eyes stared back at her from a face marked by the fading bruises of a savage beating. Hatred rose like bile in Ashi’s throat.

Tariic crouched down between the two of them. “Now,” he said, “what are we going to say really happened here?” Raat shan gath’kal dor. “The story stops but never ends.” — Traditional closing of hobgoblin legends.