Don Bassingthwaite - The doom of Kings

The thought that there might not be another attack was almost depressing to Ashi. The sharply pitched battle, the smell of blood, and the very real threat of death had roused a spirit in her that had been crushed for too long. She even felt a pang of dread as they reached the Gathering Stone. The place was little more than a tall stone marker set at a crossroads, a seething camp of goblin-dar, she reminded herself-mercenaries and would-be mercenaries, and a squat, ugly stronghold. It was no Sentinel Tower, but it was still an enclave of Deneith.

Word of Vounn’s appointment to Haruuc’s court had reached the stronghold. Shortly after they rode inside, almost before there had been time to dismount, Viceroy Redek d’Deneith appeared with words of welcome on his lips and a fear for his position in his eyes. Vounn took one look at him and asked to speak with him in private. Ashi tried to slip away with Geth, Ekhaas, and the others, but Vounn caught her first and dragged her into the conversation with Redek. Once they were shut up in Redek’s office, though, the only words she had for Ashi were an invitation to remove her scarf-they were back among members of their House, after all.

Redek couldn’t keep his eyes off the Siberys Mark, awed by the legendary power sitting in a corner of his office. He nodded to everything Vounn said, and by the time they left the room he seemed content to accept that he would continue the mundane task of brokering the services of Darguul mercenaries while Vounn handled the larger tasks of dealing with the powers of the nation. Ashi wondered why Vounn hadn’t just ordered her to strip. Had Redek seen the full extent of her dragonmark, he probably would have handed the entire stronghold over to Vounn’s command if she’d asked.

When they left the Gathering Stone, it was in the company of two full squads of hobgoblin, goblin, and bugbear mercenaries. With such protection, speed was no longer important, and they took their time. They couldn’t have ridden quickly anyway. So close to Rhukaan Draal, the way was busier. Merchants and travelers, all heavily armed, shared the road. They passed a House Orien caravan bound along the road back to Breland. The mercenaries who guarded it were hired from House Deneith, but even so they watched the party and their Darguul guards with suspicion until they were well past.

They reached Rhukaan Draal near sunset the next day. The road rose into a fine wide bridge that leaped across the dark water of a deep, fast flowing river. “The Ghaal River,” said Ekhaas. “Ships can come in all the way from the coast, but this is as far as they go. The cataract stops them here.” She pointed upstream to a boiling cascade of white water.

The city that sprawled on the southern bank of the river revealed itself as the bridge reached the apex of its gentle arc and fell again. Ashi’s first impression of Rhukaan Draal was that a bricklayer and a stone mason had collided, spilling the goods of their respective trades across the landscape. The city was a riot of buildings in a range of styles. The remains of human architecture still stood, and it was possible to see the bones of the Cyran town that Rhukaan Draal had been before Haruuc took it for his capital. The flesh that cloaked those bones, however, was rough and new. Ramshackle structures had been thrown up between and against the old human buildings in a style that Ashi was already beginning to think of as distinctly Darguul. The dar seemed to use whatever materials were at hand-wood, mortar, bricks, rough stone, worked stone, even chunk of masonry fallen from older buildings-to erect buildings that were as attractive as a rubbish heap but, to her Deneith-trained eye, looked durable and formidably defensive.

Most of the buildings, old or new, that leaned in upon the narrow, unpaved streets were no more than three stories tall. A few were taller, but nothing approached a single tower that soared up in the center of the city. At first Ashi thought that the red of the tower came from the light of the setting sun, but then she realized it was the stones of the structure themselves that gave it a bloody tint. The Khaar Mbar’ost, the Red House-Haruuc’s fortress. Unlike the other new buildings of the city, it seemed solidly constructed and even attractive in a vaguely sinister way.

Ashi looked around for someone to ask about this, but neither Ekhaas nor Chetiin nor even Tariic was nearby. Aruget, blow to his head mended by Ekhaas’s magic, rode close, and he answered her question before she’d even asked it. “Lhesh Haruuc wanted something special,” he said. “He had it built by craftsmen of House Cannith.”

It was getting easier to understand his thick accent than when she had first encountered him in Sentinel Tower, maybe because of the lessons in Goblin that Ekhaas had been giving her. Ashi tried some of her Goblin out on him. “Ataa so?” she asked, pointing in the direction of a milling throng.

All of Rhukaan Draal’s twisting, dusty streets were packed with a range of races nearly as diverse as she’d seen on visits to the cosmopolitan city of Sharn or the monster-dominated Droaamish port of Vralkek, but in that direction the crowd seemed to grow thicker and even more diverse. Among the goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears, she could see humans, elves, dwarves, shifters, even a few slight halflings and towering warforged. They all had an air of suspicion about them, as if everyone was trying to keep an eye on everyone else while also keeping one hand near their weapon. A little farther into the crowd, it appeared that stalls had been set up. Those who stood within the stalls looked the most suspicious of all.

“Khaari Batuuvk,” said Aruget. “The Bloody Market. Anything is for sale there.” He gave her a slow look. “You should stay away. Mo’tohiish.”

Very dangerous. Ashi nodded, but she kept one eye on the market as they rode. It didn’t look any more dangerous to her than other places she’d been-in Vralkek, she’d stared down an ogre intent on picking a fight-but then again, it seemed that every second street corner in Rhukaan Draal carried a surprise that shifted her hand a little closer to her sword. On one corner, three goblin children industriously stripped a bugbear that, on first glance, she took to be sleeping, but on looking again she realized was dead. On another corner, a grubby dwarf stood beside a cart displaying a rack of the skinned and dripping carcasses of some animal Ashi couldn’t identify, in spite of her years as a hunter. The dwarf saw her staring and grinned, displaying brilliantly white teeth. On a third corner, a dull-eyed human so thin and ragged Ashi wasn’t sure if it was a man or a women danced in shuffling circles as goblins and hobgoblins passed by without a second glance.

“The crown city of Darguun,” said Midian, riding his magical pony up beside her. “Magnificent sight, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t realize there would be so many races,” Ashi said.

“The laws are simple here, and nobody asks too many questions. There are people in Rhukaan Draal who couldn’t show their faces in the Five Nations without being arrested. In its own way, it’s even more open than Sharn. Nobody here is really interested in who you are or what you’ve done.”

Ashi could see that the gnome was right. She was staring far more than anyone else in the streets. The inhabitants of Rhukaan Draal hardly seemed to look twice at what was going on around them or even at the procession of mercenaries surrounding the party that rode under Haruuc’s personal banner. They were just another part of the bustle in the streets-only the strength of their numbers earned them space on the road.

She remembered how Aruget had responded in a similar way to her when they’d faced each other at Sentinel Tower, reacting to her, not to her position. On impulse, she reached up and pulled off the scarf that had covered her head and face, exposing the pattern of her dragonmark. Midian raised his eyebrows, but there was absolutely no reaction from anyone on the street. They were under the shadow of Haruuc’s fortress and riding across a wide stone plaza to towering gates before even Vounn noticed. “Ashi!” she snapped. “Put your scarf back on!”