Don Bassingthwaite - The doom of Kings

“Games?” Geth asked.

“Contests of strength and skill. Tales from duur’kala. Fights between gladiators. Razu can help you with the details. One day of games for Vanii, three days for victory over the Gan’duur. Don’t look at me like that, Munta!” Haruuc’s voice rose to a sudden roar, and Munta, who had been about to speak, closed his mouth. “It is within my right! These will be games to remember. I want them to be talked about ten-no, twenty years from now. This is my gift to the people.”

“Lhesh,” Munta said humbly, “they will cost money. There are still food shortages. We still need to buy grain.”

“There is money enough.” Haruuc pointed at Geth. “Speak with Senen Dhakaan. Ask her about the games held in the time of the empire. Make me proud, shava.”

Geth swallowed and bent his head. “I will.”

At the back of the throne room, the carved door opened again to admit a thin, nervous hobgoblin who looked more like a merchant than a warlord. Haruuc’s ears went back, and he gestured for the hobgoblin to come forward. “Iizan of Ghaal Sehn, join us. The Ghaal Sehn hold the territory on the west side of the Orien trade road from the Gathering Stone to Rhukaan Draal?”

Iizan dropped down to his knees. “We do, lhesh.”

“And there is a forest in your territory, not too far from the road?”

“There is, lhesh. A small one.”

Haruuc nodded. “Good. Take the slaves from your fields-”

A flush sprang up in Iizan’s face. “The Ghaal Sehn no longer keep slaves, Lhesh Haruuc!” he said. “We followed your example and freed them.”

The lhesh stood and stepped down from his throne to stand over the kneeling hobgoblin. “I didn’t ask if you have slaves, Iizan! I know that you do. I know that seven of ten warlords who swear they follow my example still keep slaves in secret!”

He seized a handful of Iizan’s hair and dragged him to his feet so sharply that Iizan didn’t have a chance to cry out. “I want you to take the slaves from your field and raze that forest. Take the strongest trees, strip them of leaves and small branches, and stand them along the trade road, one pair every two leagues from the Gathering Stone to the bridge over the Ghaal River. This will be done within three days, in time for the return of the soldiers from the north. You will have aid-the slaves of neighboring clans will be sent to you.” He looked into Iizan’s face as if searching for something, then flung the warlord away. “Do this and you will be rewarded. Do you understand, Iizan?”

“Mazo, lhesh,” Iizan choked.

Haruuc gestured with the Rod of Kings, dismissing him, and the warlord fled. Geth stared at Haruuc as he returned to his throne. The image of a tree, bare of all but the strongest branches rose up in his imagination. He’d seen a shape like that before. From the expression on Munta’s face, he knew the old warlord recognized it as well.

Ekhaas had once told him that one of the greatest creations of Taruuzh, the ancient dashoor who had forged the Sword of Heroes and the Rod of Kings, had been a device of execution. In the time of Dhakaan, his device had spread to every city in the empire. The secret of making them had been lost in the Desperate Times after the empire’s fall, but hobgoblins of all clans, she’d said, still emulated their use in ending the lives of criminals and traitors.

Geth wet his lips and looked up at Haruuc. “Grieving trees?” he asked. His voice sounded thin in the emptiness of the throne room. “You’re lining the road to Rhukaan Draal with grieving trees?”

“The Gan’duur must be punished.” Haruuc’s face was hard.

Munta actually seemed frail with worry. “Haruuc, what will the Five Nations and the dragonmarked houses say? This is too much.”

“You have your instructions, Munta,” Haruuc said. “So does Iizan. Dagii’s instructions have been dispatched to him.”

“But the Five Nations-”

“This is no concern of theirs!” Haruuc’s voice rose again. “It is a matter for Darguun and Darguun alone. Our traditions are as old as our claim on this land, and both are older than the Five Nations. Go and do your duty, Munta. Let Rhukaan Draal know whom it mourns.”

There was a finality in his voice that would accept no further argument. The warlord of the Gantii Vus nodded stiffly, turned, and walked back up the long length of the throne room to the carved doors. Geth was left facing Haruuc alone. After a long moment, he asked, “Can I go too?”

“No. Stay. I’m expecting one more visitor, and I want you here as witness to one of the most sacred duties of a shava.” Haruuc gestured behind himself. “Stand at my shoulder. Where Vanii stood.”

Geth stepped up onto the dais and moved behind Haruuc. The lhesh lapsed into silence. Anger and disgust whirled in Geth’s mind. Organizing funerary games in memory of Vanii and to commemorate victory over a rebellion-that was something he could deal with. There was nothing he could object to except the task itself. The games even sounded like fun, but now they were irrevocably tainted by the thought of so many grieving trees and the victims they would claim.

“You know why I have to do this, don’t you?” Haruuc said without turning around.

“No,” Geth growled. “I don’t.”

“I have to show the other warlords what happens to rebels. I have to remind them of who I am-of what the lhesh is. It’s ironic that in defeating the Gan’duur, I have no choice but to become the bloody tyrant they wanted me to be. Our culture is not merciful, Geth. It does not favor forgiveness. Humans have difficulty understanding that. I thought a shifter might.” He paused, then added, “When your friend died in battle, what did you do?”

“I put my sword through the belly of the man who killed him,” Geth said. “Blood paid for blood spilled.”

“You killed him.”

Geth bared his teeth. “I killed him. I didn’t order someone else to hang him on a tree.”

“Is it so different from ordering soldiers into battle? People kill and die at the command of rulers all the time,” said Haruuc. “Don’t think I wouldn’t do it myself. When I read Dagii’s message, I wanted to ride north and put a sword through Keraal-although, of course, I don’t know it was Keraal who struck Vanii down. I wanted to put a sword through Dagii for letting Vanii die. I even wanted to put a sword through myself for sending him up there.” He let out a slow breath. “But this isn’t about Vanii, anymore. It’s not even about me. It’s about Darguun, just like retrieving the rod was.”

He rapped the byeshk shaft on the arm of his throne, and the heavy clang echoed in the room. “That’s the doom of kings, Geth. We’re men and women when we take the throne, but we lose ourselves to our people. We stop being individuals and become nations. And mark my words”-he twisted around to meet Geth’s eyes-“the nation of Darguun will not cry for the Gan’duur. It will dance under the grieving trees. It would dance if I hung on the tree. Darguun wants blood. The people always want blood.”

“Find another way to give it to them.”

Haruuc’s ears lay back. “But I am Darguun,” he said slowly. “I am one of the people.”

The hair on Geth’s arms and the back of his neck rose. He felt, for a moment, as if he was looking at Haruuc and all hobgoblins for the first time. Wide face, flat nose, mobile ears, sharp teeth-goblins were no more human than he was. Less, because his ancestors had been human once upon a time. The ancestors of the goblin races had always been goblins. But he understood what Haruuc meant. He had felt it himself, a discomfort in the sprawling cities of humans, a predator’s instinct to see crowds as either prey or threat.