Don Bassingthwaite - The doom of Kings

“It holds you back, Tariic,” Vounn said. “If Darguun wants to be truly accepted as a civilized nation, then Haruuc-or his successor-needs to eliminate it.”

Tariic spread his hands. “You wash the bather, Vounn. I freed my slaves the day my uncle freed his.”

“The Dhakaani owned slaves?” Geth asked Ekhaas.

The duur’kala nodded. “Not all the people of the empire were heroes. The modern Dhakaani clans still keep slaves. Before I left Darguun I thought little of it, but the time I spent in the larger world has convinced me that the traditions of Dhakaan are wrong in that at least. Our people change slowly, though. Haruuc’s position has not added to his popularity.”

When slaves brought them dinner later, Vounn insisted that they eat a portion of the food as well. When they left, she had one of Tariic’s soldiers accompany them back to the kitchens with a harsh message that she’d been the one to feed them and that anyone who objected should come to her. No one came.

Pipes and drums signaling the change of a duty shift in the fortress roused their party before dawn, and they rode out of Matshuc Zaal’s eastern gate in thin but welcome light. They spent the second day of their journey in the descent of the pass and camped below the mountains that night. A well-used fire ring showed where many other groups had camped on the site.

“I’m surprised House Ghallanda hasn’t set up an inn here,” said Ashi.

“They did,” said one of the soldiers-Aruget, Geth thought. The hobgoblin pointed to the far side of the road. “You can still see the foundation over there.”

“What happened to it?” Geth asked.

The hobgoblin smiled. “Darguun.”

When they rose the next morning, they armed themselves as Tariic had suggested, putting their strength on display for any bandits that might otherwise be tempted to test them. Tariic and his soldiers donned armor of chain mail and linked plates, spiked at the joints. Ekhaas wore leather armor set with dark studs of steel. Midian produced a stiff leather vest. Neither Ashi nor Chetiin wore armor-they both fought fast and light, Geth knew, relying on skill and the steel of their weapons to protect them. Vounn didn’t don armor either, but just sat and watched the others with a smile of mild amusement.

For himself, Geth reached into his pack and pulled out a bundle wrapped in soft oiled leather. The bundle had taken up most of the space in the pack, and without its bulk the pack sagged like a discarded boot. He traveled light, but the bundle contained one of his most prized possessions. Setting it on a rock, he folded back the leather.

The plates of black magewrought steel that formed his great gauntlet gleamed dully in the morning light. Geth checked over each plate and every strap and buckle, then drew the gauntlet on. Interlocking strips of metal bulged around his upper arm, running all the way up to the plates of the wide, heavy shoulder guard. Flat spikes lined the ridge of his forearm and protruded from his knuckles, and three low, hooked blades rose from the back of his hand. Geth tightened the straps that held the gauntlet in place, then curled his fingers into a fist. The black steel whispered like a sword drawn from a scabbard.

The Darguuls had stopped to watch him. “Paatcha,” Tariic said approvingly.

Aruget grunted. “Nice armor,” he said in his thick accent. “Where’s the rest of it?”

Geth bent and straightened his arm, testing the fit. “I don’t need more,” he said in a low growl. The gauntlet had cost him a full year of his wages and bonuses as a mercenary, paid to an artificer in the now-dead city of Metrol. It had been worth every last silver sovereign.

The company must have made, he guessed, an impressive sight as they rode, sunlight flashing on armor, the banners worn by the soldiers snapping. The trade road was flat and straight as it emerged from the foothills, and they let Tariic’s magebred horses run. The speed that the animals’ walking gait had hinted at was no false promise. Under a cloudless sky so bright that its blue seemed almost white, the horses raced along the road, necks outstretched and hooves drumming like music, as if running were all they had been born to do.

Away from the mountains, the land became as flat as the road, broken only by the occasional gentle hill and by streambeds that were cracked and dry with the beginning of late summer. They passed ruins frequently, not Dhakaani but human, the skeletons of farms and hamlets destroyed by Haruuc’s armies thirty years before. Fields and orchards ran wild, offering a bountiful but neglected harvest. “Where are your people?” Geth asked Chetiin. “I thought I’d see more of them.”

“Not here. Most live away from the mountains where rain falls more frequently and life is easier.”

His voice was strangely muffled and Geth glanced over his shoulder to look at him. Chetiin was facing backward, looking back the way they had come. “What is it?” Geth asked.

The shaarat’khesh elder turned to face him again. “We’re being followed.”

The road behind them was empty except for the thinning dust of their own passage. The Seawall Mountains receded in the distance, but Geth thought he could see all the way back to the pass. No one was on the road. “Where? And if we are being followed, how are they keeping up with us?”

Chetiin shook his head. “I don’t know where, but I can feel it.” His ears twitched. “And maybe they won’t keep up, but I’ll talk to Tariic anyway. We should set a double guard tonight.”

Tariic listened when Chetiin told him of his concerns, and that night they made camp with the road on one side of them and the steep gullies of a dry forking streambed on two others. They drew straws for watches, Vounn and Ashi excluded because of their inability to see in the dark. Geth drew second watch opposite Aruget. When he climbed from his bedroll, shaken awake by Midian as the gnome retired from his turn on watch, Aruget pointed him roughly to the side of the camp that faced southeast. He had already claimed the northwest side of the camp. Geth shrugged, adjusted his great gauntlet, and went where he was told. The view from either side of the camp was equally empty under the combined lights of the risen moons.

In fact, Geth had no objection to sitting watch on his own. He appreciated being alone for the first time that day. As Midian and the soldier Krakuul, who had drawn first watch, found their bedrolls and their breathing faded into the same easy rhythm as those already asleep, Geth touched the collar of rune-etched black stones he wore around his neck and looked up at the hazy brightness of the Ring of Siberys.

It was the fourth day of Barrakas. Exactly one year ago, the Bonetree hunters and their monstrous dolgrim allies had attacked Bull Hollow, the little hamlet on the remote edge of the Eldeen Reaches that had become his haven after the Last War. They had been pursuing Dandra, and they’d destroyed much of Bull Hollow in their attempt to draw her out. In the process, they had killed Adolan, the hamlet’s defender and Geth’s friend.

Geth squeezed the stones of the collar. With his last breath, Adolan had told him to take it. The collar was a relic of the sect of druids, the Gatekeepers, to which Adolan had belonged. Through his adventures in the months that followed, the ancient magic of the collar had given him protection and guidance, turning icy cold whenever he’d been threatened by the sanity-twisting forces behind the tainted dragon Dah’mir’s power.

Now it was no cooler than the night air, but it seemed to Geth that the stones were very, very heavy. He sighed and let them go. The collar fell back against his neck.

There was a rustling behind him, and he looked over his shoulder to see Ashi silhouetted against the dim glow of the banked campfire. “Can I join you?” she asked softly.