Don Bassingthwaite - The doom of Kings

“I can’t tell you,” he said. “Partly because I know that Haruuc wants to tell you himself. Partly because”-he shrugged-“partly because I only know the beginning of it. No one knows what will happen after that.”

“Geth,” said Ekhaas, “I told you once that Wrath is the sword of heroes. What Haruuc will ask of you is the task of a hero, but you won’t have to do it alone. I’ll be with you. And so will others.”

“Me,” said Chetiin. Geth looked down at the goblin. His dark stained face was serious.

“And me!” said Ashi. Everyone looked at her. Her eyes were shining and there was a wide, enthusiastic grin across her face. Her hand dropped to her sword and she squeezed the hilt. “Rond betch, you’re not doing anything without me!”

“What?” Vounn’s voice cracked like a whip. “Ashi, you’re not doing anything!” She stepped forward, high spots of color appearing in her cheeks, and faced Tariic. “Was this your ‘plan’ for her?”

Tariic bared his teeth at the confrontation. “No!” he said. He looked sharply at Ashi. “Our only plan was for her to act as a cover for Geth because they already knew each other.”

Ashi’s grin faded slightly, but the color in Vounn’s cheeks only grew more intense. “A cover?” she asked.

“There’s already unrest in Darguun,” Tariic answered. “As Ekhaas said, not every clan fully accepted Haruuc’s rule. Some of them are already stirring up trouble again, and some of the groups that want to succeed Haruuc aren’t much better. Haruuc wants Geth brought into Darguun quietly so they don’t take his need for him as a sign of weakness. That’s why he called on the Silent Clans to find and fetch him while we carried on to Karrlakton and met with you. If he agrees to come, Geth will return to Darguun with us in the guise of Ashi’s bodyguard. None of Haruuc’s rivals will suspect anything.”

“You couldn’t have known that Ashi would be permitted to come.”

“In which case Geth would have posed as your bodyguard.”

The ice returned to Vounn’s voice. “It almost seems,” she said, “as if Deneith is merely a convenience for you in this. No wonder your journey to Sentinel Tower was so abrupt.”

Geth could see the unspoken curse that flickered behind Tariic’s eyes before the hobgoblin answered. “Vounn, Haruuc just saw that the timing was right to fight two battles with one army. Deneith and you are important for all the reasons I’ve already said.”

“Indeed,” said Vounn, her eyes flashing, “and it seems for our ability to act as a cover as well. As I’ve already said to you, true friends deserve to know everything that’s going on. Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

Tariic spoke through clenched teeth. “There’s nothing else I can tell you except that we’ll be meeting someone else at our last lightning rail stop in Sterngate. Don’t worry. He’s traveling openly and has nothing to do with you.”

“Then we’ll say nothing more about this until we reach Rhukaan Draal and I can raise the issue with Haruuc. He appears to be the one holding your reins. Good evening, Tariic. Ashi, come with me.” She turned and marched to the lightning rail cart. After a few paces, she looked back over her shoulder. “Ashi!”

Ashi’s face was split between a fierce anger and a frightened obedience. “Vounn, I want to stay. My friends-”

“Ashi,” Vounn said quietly, “it’s not too late to send you back to Karrlakton-and at this moment I am willing to suffer Haruuc’s displeasure by doing so. Come with me or you’ll be waiting for the next northbound coach.”

The color drained from Ashi’s face. Geth couldn’t have said whether it was because of anger or out of fear at being left behind. With a last longing glance at him and Ekhaas, Ashi went stalking off after Vounn.

“Maabet!” said Tariic under his breath. “That one’s going to be trouble.”

“A dragon like that deserves her own lair,” Chetiin told Geth. “You can sleep in the cart with the Silent Clans during the journey to Sterngate if you prefer.”

Geth blinked. “I haven’t said I’m going.”

“Aren’t you?”

Geth looked at Tariic and Ekhaas, both of them with their eyes now turned to him. He grimaced. “Grandfather Rat,” he said, “this hero thing is ridiculous.” He pointed after Ashi and Vounn. “I’m doing this for Ashi,” he said.

Ekhaas smiled.

Tariic nodded in satisfaction. “I don’t ask why,” he said. “That you’re doing it is enough for me. Go to sleep-we join the southbound coach in the morning.”

Chetiin nudged him toward the cart into which the other shaarat’khesh and taarka’khesh had disappeared. “Settle in,” he said. “Mind the tigers.”

Before they left the next morning, Geth sent a message by House Orien courier from the lightning rail station, directed to Singe and Dandra in Fairhaven and letting them know that he wouldn’t be meeting them as planned but was instead going to Darguun with Ekhaas and Ashi. Ekhaas couldn’t tell him how long Haruuc’s mysterious task might take-not because she wasn’t permitted to tell him but simply because she didn’t know. Geth had written, Will send word-watch for news of riots in Rhukaan Draal.

“That will put a twist in Singe’s britches,” he’d told the duur’kala.

The journey from Sigilstar to Sterngate took only two days, including stops at cities and towns along the way for the transfer of passengers and cargo-two days to whisk them across the remainder of Thrane and along nearly a third of the length of the kingdom of Breland before cutting directly across the country to its southern border. The miracle of the lightning rail never ceased to amaze Geth. Two days to cross half the width of the continent. It barely seemed like enough time for him to catch up with Ekhaas and Ashi, to hear about Ekhaas’s rise within the Kech Volaar and Ashi’s dire experiences under Vounn’s mentoring. For him to tell them about his first encounter with Chetiin and the other shaarat’khesh.

“They came after me down a dark street and backed me up against a wall,” he told the two women as the countryside sped past outside the windows of the cart. “Chetiin pulled out his dagger, and I thought I was in for a hard fight-until he stepped up and laid the dagger on the ground. He looked at me like I was a recruit on muster, then said in Goblin, ‘Ekhaas of the Word Bearers tells me that, with that sword in your hand, you can understand our speech. By her name, will you listen to what I have come to tell you?’”

He managed a passable imitation of Chetiin’s scarred voice that brought a faint smile from Ekhaas.

Ashi sat forward. “What happened?”

“You could have knocked me down with a Sharn sweet roll. But Chetiin didn’t go for his dagger again, and he had mentioned your name, so I said I’d listen. Have you noticed he always gets right to the point? He said Lhesh Haruuc needed the bearer of Wrath and asked me to come to Sigilstar with him and his people to meet Ekhaas and Tariic.”

“And you just went with him?”

Geth glowered at her. “I’m not stupid. He knew details from our time in the Shadow Marches that only Ekhaas could know, and he had a scroll with a message from Haruuc. He got my interest.” The shifter shrugged. “Besides, it was only a trip to Sigilstar. There was no hurry for me to get back to Dandra and Singe-and I wasn’t feeling welcome in Lathleer. It turned out that Chetiin had more of his people shadowing the locals who’d been looking for me. They distracted them, we got out of town with no problem, and joined up with the taarkakhesh who were waiting for us. After that, we just traveled across country.”

He shook his head in amazement. “I thought I could get a long way in a night, but shaarat’khesh and taarkakhesh can really move. We ran into a border patrol as we crossed from Aundair to Thrane, but I don’t think they even saw us. I don’t think anybody spotted us on the entire journey.”