The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [140]
The rag reeked powerfully of distilled alcohol and something else she couldn’t quite identify. It was herbal, both bitter and sweet, and it reminded her vaguely of a tea-like beverage she’d once been served at a feast thrown by the half-orcs of House Tharashk. She tried to hit Thuun with her elbows and her feet, hard defensive blows with no mercy. One backward kick came close to landing in his groin, but he twisted and took the blow on his leg instead. She heard him grunt, then he brought his mouth close to her ear.
“Struggle harder, Vounn of Deneith. You can do it.”
He was no longer speaking Goblin. She threw herself into another furious struggle, but he just kept twisting and letting her blows slide off him. After a few moments, though, it seemed to Vounn that her arms and legs were strangely heavy, that her blows were sluggish, and she realized what a mistake she’d made. Struggling harder had made her breath more deeply, inhaling greater quantities of the fumes from the rag. They seemed to penetrate her mind and rob her of will. Her vision drifted; she couldn’t focus on anything for more than a moment. Her body went limp in Thuun’s grasp.
The hobgoblin eased her to the ground, supporting her if she were a drunkard while he tucked the rag away in a pouch at his belt. She caught a glimpse of a small brown bottle. “What have you done to me?” she tried to ask him, but the words came out slurred.
He must have guessed at what she was saying. “Essence of gaeth’ad,” he said. “Created by bounty hunters from the gaeth’ad tea of the Shadow Marches. Normally you’d have to drink it, but mixing it with strong alcohol gives the fumes some effect and allows for an easier delivery.”
She was certain of the tea scent now. “Tharashk,” she managed to say with some clarity.
Thuun chuckled. “No, just freelance.”
Some servants were peeking back out into the corridor again. Thuun waved them away. “Too much to drink,” he said in Goblin. “Taking her for fresh air.” With a professional ease, he steered her stumbling body along the corridor and, after a few moments, into a small courtyard. Servants and even guards bustled about, many of them staring at a column of smoke that could be seen through a tall gate. No one paid much attention to the soldier with the human woman under his arm.
No one except two more soldiers who came to help, one with a cloak over his arm. Some part of Vounn knew they weren’t really soldiers. They wore the red corded armbands of Khaar Mbar’ost, but their armor was rough and unpolished, the hair tucked under their helmets lank and greasy.
“Help,” she called, hoping someone might hear her. No one did. The word was a croak. The cloak was whirled about her, leaving her with only a narrow gap in the hood to peer through. The three hobgoblins walked her out the gate without anyone challenging them.
At first the streets of Rhukaan Draal seemed quiet, but the farther they went, the more the sounds of chaos filled the air. Vounn could see little through her narrow field of vision, and her drug-addled senses seemed to make everything worse. People were running back and forth. A few were screaming. She caught snatches of rumors: that the storehouses of the city were burning, that there were riots over a new supply of food, that Lhesh Haruuc had imposed martial law in the streets. She could smell smoke, heavy and choking. She mostly saw running legs and darting figures. They started to turn down one street but pulled back—Vounn saw fighting ahead. They went another way. The hobgoblins’ pace, set by the traitorous Thuun, was fast. Vounn stumbled helplessly. She shook her head, trying to throw off the hood. She managed to get it half off. Thuun grabbed it and pulled it back down, but not before she’d gotten a look at him.
He was no longer Thuun. He wore Thuun’s armor, and she would have sworn that his hands had never left his arms, but he was not Thuun. Instead of the familiar face of the guard Haruuc had assigned to her, she saw a stranger, some anonymous hobgoblin who could have gone unnoticed in any