The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [56]
“The leader, I think,” said Chetiin. “Killed because he took his people into a bad fight.” He began feeling through the corpse’s clothes and grunted. “Tariic was right. They were no bandits. This one was too well fed.”
Geth inspected the hoofprints left by the horses and, interspersed among them, the prints of hobgoblin boots. If it had been daylight they should have brought Ashi—she was an expert tracker. He’d learned some skills himself, though, and the story told in the dusty ground wasn’t hard to read. “They rode in after dark,” he said, “then waited until deep night to approach. There were a lot of horses—the survivors must have taken all of them or let them loose to try to confuse pursuit.”
But the soft sound of shifting hooves drew him up the slope of the well-churned bank. One horse still stood there, grazing on a patch of dry grass, and there was a bundle still lashed behind its saddle. The horse shifted nervously as he approached, probably smelling the blood on him, but it stood still long enough for him to free the bundle before galloping away. Chetiin joined him, and Geth shook the bundle open. Clothes fell out. Good clothes, far better than the pretend bandits had been wearing. Chetiin reached out and plucked one item from the pile, a banner like the ones Aruget and the other soldiers wore as they rode.
This banner was yellow and marked with the crest of what looked like a snarling dog. Chetiin’s ears rose. “Gan’duur,” he said. “Eaters of Sorrow.”
“Another clan?” Geth guessed.
“A clan that has chafed under Haruuc’s rule. Tariic will be interested in this.”
Geth’s eyes narrowed. “The hobgoblin that attacked Vounn knew she was Deneith.”
“I heard him,” said Chetiin. “They knew who we are—or at least who she is. If something happened to Vounn, Haruuc would be shamed and weakened in the eyes of the clans. The Gan’duur would gain strength.”
“They knew we were coming. Do you think they were the ones following us today, somewhere off the road?”
Chetiin shook his head and pointed to the wide path of hoof-prints that led away from the streambed. Geth looked at it again, frowned, then looked again and finally recognized what the goblin had seen.
Only one swathe of hoofprints cut across the landscape. Their attackers had come from and fled into the east.
Their party had ridden out of the west.
“They didn’t follow us,” Chetiin said, “but they knew where to find us.”
CHAPTER
TEN
They rode hard for the next three days, pushing to reach the Deneith stronghold at the Gathering Stone. Ashi was glad for the speed and endurance of Tariic’s magebred horses and doubly glad of the riding lessons Vounn had made her take—before she’d gone to House Deneith, she’d ridden only rarely and always at a much slower pace. Tariic had taken news of Geth and Chetiin’s discoveries with bared teeth and flattened ears. Vounn and he had agreed: they needed to complete their journey as quickly as possible. If someone wanted to stop them, they had the measure of the party’s strength now. Another attack wouldn’t be so easily defeated.
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