The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [172]
The word broke the glass. Wrath left its scabbard. Dagii vaulted up the steps of the dais. There were shouts in the crowd.
Chetiin darted aside and rolled behind Haruuc. The lhesh tried to turn, to step on the goblin, but Chetiin’s feet lashed out in a sharp kick that buckled Haruuc’s knee. He fell forward onto his hands and knees. The Rod of Kings left his grip with a dull clang of metal on stone and rolled across the dais. Chetiin spun to his feet and lunged for Haruuc’s neck. The hobgoblin twisted onto his back, grabbing for him. Chetiin slashed at the grasping hands. Blood spattered on the stone of the dais.
Then Geth was standing over Haruuc and Dagii was closing in on Chetiin’s other side. The goblin’s eyes darted between them; he spun and sprinted for the grieving tree. Dagii turned and went after him.
Geth’s heart jumped. “Dagii! No!”
Too late. Chetiin dropped flat and slid across the floor into a gap under Vanii’s bier. Dagii tried to pull himself back as he saw the danger, but couldn’t. With a grating of stone, one of the limbs of the grieving tree bent down and snatched him up. The metal of his armor squealed under the pressure. Dagii roared as he bashed at the carved branch that held him. More branches were already reaching for him.
Geth knelt down over Haruuc. “Stop the tree!” he said. “You know the word—stop it!”
Haruuc’s eyes flickered. Sweat stood out on the yellow skin of his brow. “It burns!” he gasped.
Geth cursed and pulled aside his arm. The crossbow bolt still embedded in his armpit had something black and gummy smeared along its shaft. Poison. Geth clenched his teeth and slapped the lhesh.
“Stop the tree, Haruuc!” He twisted the high warlord around so he could see Dagii struggling—and Chetiin crawling out from under the bier. Haruuc’s face curled in anger. He spat a word.
The tree shuddered and stopped moving. Dagii yelled as both he and Keraal tumbled out of its branches. Chetiin’s eyes narrowed. He darted at Geth and Haruuc.
Snarling, Geth released Haruuc and lunged to meet the goblin. Wrath swung low like a scythe—
—and Chetiin went high, leaping off Geth’s outstretched arm and bounding over his head like a monkey. Geth twisted around to watch him tumble in the air and come down right beside Haruuc. The injured lhesh’s eyes went wide. Bloody hands tried to grab at Chetiin, but the goblin twisted aside. The dull blade of the dagger named Witness plunged down and into one of the wide eyes.
Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor jerked, then lay still.
Silence seized the throne room. Warlords who had been rushing to the dais stopped like statues, weapons still raised. Geth saw Ashi, who had been coming to his aid, slow and stop. Aruget, standing in the door behind her, was just staring.
Only Chetiin moved. The goblin didn’t even try to pull Witness from Haruuc’s body. He looked up at Geth and said in his scarred voice, “We swore we would do what we had to,” then twisted away from the dead man and darted to where his rope still swayed. With sinuous swiftness, he scrambled up it and into the rafters.
Geth’s voice came back to him. “Stop him!” he shouted. “Get up to the gallery! Stop him!” Someone was relaying his words back to the spectators and guards in the antechamber, but Geth had a feeling in his gut that, however fast they might be, they would still find the gallery empty and Chetiin vanished.
You will destroy what you have built unless you are stopped. The goblin’s final words to Haruuc.
Geth stumbled back to Haruuc and knelt down beside him. The lhesh’s remaining eye stared up blind, just like the eyes of the troll in the valley.
Ashi came and knelt on Haruuc’s other side. “He said we swore we’d do what he had to.”
“I think he thought Haruuc had discovered the power of the rod,” Geth said. “He didn’t know the rod’s real danger.”
The shifter looked down from the dais. On the floor of the throne