The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [168]
“Ekhaas!” he said as soon as he was close. “I need Ashi! Have you seen her or Vounn? Have they gone to the gallery?”
He started to turn to the passage that led up to the gallery overlooking the throne room, but Ekhaas grabbed him and spun him around. “The gallery is closed,” she said. “But I saw them heading up the stairs to their chambers. They haven’t come back down?”
“I couldn’t see them.” Geth pulled away, but she hung onto him a moment longer.
“What’s happening?” she whispered in his ear.
He hesitated for a moment, then murmured back, “The rod.”
She felt her ears rise and panic filled her. “Haruuc has discovered its powers?”
“Not yet. It’s trying to make him a king the way Wrath makes me a hero.”
“Khaavolaar! What can I do?”
“Watch him!”
Geth tore out of her grasp and charged through the crowded chamber like a bull. She stared after him until Senen asked in her ear, “What was that about?”
She twitched and turned back. “It’s a private matter.”
Senen’s ears flicked. “Haruuc’s shava comes rushing out of a sealed throne room looking for the bearer of a Siberys dragonmark, and it’s a private matter?”
Ekhaas’s teeth ground together. “Yes,” she said tightly and was saved from further interrogation by a collective gasp of amazement that rose from the front ranks of the crowd. The great door was all the way up, and the way into the throne room was open. There was a moment of confusion, as if some of those in the front ranks had drawn back before entering, but then Haruuc’s court was moving inexorably forward. Ekhaas was carried up the stairs—and saw the grieving tree.
“Khaavolaar!” she said again, but her expression of surprise was lost in the rolling wave of astonishment that gripped each new rank of spectators to mount the stairs. Every goblin knew what a true grieving tree was supposed to look like. Very few of them had ever seen one before. Ekhaas had, and she still found herself struck dumb by the curved and cruel branches of white stone.
The interior of the throne room was as silent as Haruuc on his throne. The only noises were the rustle of fabric and the clatter of armor as warlords and clan chiefs, ambassadors, envoys, and councilors took their places. The room was packed tight. Ekhaas was fortunate enough to find herself with a good view of Haruuc. When the court had assembled, he spoke.
“Enter the dead.”
A drum beat started, and Ekhaas couldn’t help but think of the drum that had followed their steps into the throne room when they’d presented Haruuc with the rod. She studied the lhesh, trying to see if she could find any clue to the truth of what Geth had said. Haruuc’s fingers were white around the rod, and his face was drawn into a tightly controlled mask, but that could have been anger or grief.
There was movement in the doorway. With another rustle of cloth and metal, heads turned as Vanii’s body was carried into the throne room by the same six bugbears who had carried the casket through Rhukaan Draal. It had been removed from the casket, though, and placed on a silk-draped plank. There was some preserving magic at work—Haruuc’s shava had been dead for nearly a week, but he might have been struck down only hours before. Humans, Ekhaas knew, might have tried to make it look like he was only sleeping. Such denial was a shame. Goblin tradition honored a warrior’s death. The wound that had killed Vanii was visible for all to see: a deep red rent in his chest surrounded by shattered mail and broken ribs.
At the end of the aisle, the bugbears paused before Haruuc. He rose from his