The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [67]
“Ah,” sighed Haruuc, leaning closer. Munta, Vanii, Tariic, Dagii—all of them shifted in awe at the sight of Aram. Senen tried to retain her aloof and angry manner, but Ekhaas saw her ears stand and her face shine with excitement. Ekhaas understood her reaction. She’d experienced it herself at first. For one of the Kech Volaar, keepers of the history of Dhakaan, possession of such an artifact was beyond a dream. Under any other circumstances, the leaders of the Kech Volaar would have sent agents—like Ekhaas—to seize the sword and whisk it away into the safety of the great vaults of secrets beneath Volaar Draal. But Aram wasn’t any other sword, and she found her voice rising out of her.
“Behold Aram,” she said, her voice ringing. “Forged by Taruuzh dashoor in the age of Dhakaan and given to Duulan, first of the name Kuun. The sword of heroes that will not suffer the grasp of a coward, held by the warrior who carried it in triumph from the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol!”
Aram had accepted Geth’s touch. The shifter had earned the right to carry the blade. The Kech Volaar would not have taken it from him.
“Behold Aram,” Senen repeated like a soft echo.
“It’s true,” said Haruuc. “Everything you said about it, Ekhaas. If I had any doubts …” He sat back and looked around the room. When he spoke, his voice was hard once more.
“You all know that Darguun will face a crisis of succession when I die.” For a moment it looked as if Vanii might interrupt with some protest at this reminder of the lhesh’s mortality, but Haruuc held up his hand. “My death, like all our deaths, is inevitable. I don’t look forward to it, but I must plan for the day it comes. I must choose a successor and, for the sake of Darguun, I must do all I can to ensure that my successor’s reign does not see an end to what I built. Darguun is my legacy to our people, a nation that is our own. I want it to prosper. But I ask myself—why will our people follow my successor? Many warlords follow me because I am Haruuc. Will they transfer their loyalty to the one who comes after me?”
Haruuc curled his hands and rapped his knuckles together pensively as he continued. “If I’d listened long ago, I would have realized that the answer had already been given to me by Fenic of Mur Talaan. After the battle to capture the town that has become Rhukaan Draal—one of the most hard-fought battles of my life— he told me that the town had not stood by its lord, but that it had stood by the history embodied in the symbol of a feathery helmet. Only recently have those words come back to me. The lhesh of Darguun also needs a symbol of our people’s history, something to tie the present to the glorious past.”
Geth started and bared his teeth. His grip on the sword shifted and tightened. “You want Wrath?” he snarled.
The lhesh laughed. “I already have a sword!” he said, patting the weapon that rested nearby. “It will go to my successor as a symbol of his connection to me, but its history extends no farther than a weaponsmith’s shop in the town of Rheklor. The symbol I seek must be older.” His gaze stayed on Geth. “The inspiration for the symbol I wish to pass on to my successor came from your rediscovery of Aram. Knowing that I needed a connection to Dhakaan, I sought a closer tie with the keepers of history, the Kech Volaar. For thirty years, I have tried to make alliances with the Dhakaani clans, but I was rejected. The Kech Volaar, the Kech Shaarat, and the other kech saw no value in aligning themselves with an upstart warlord who had drifted from the pure traditions of the empire.”
“Until you came to the Kech