The Tyranny of Ghosts_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [4]
Stunned at their friends’ deaths, there was nothing the others could do but flee as Tariic ordered Dagii to ride them down. Away from the crowd, Ekhaas turned to confront her beloved and allow the others a chance to flee, but found herself unexpectedly aided by Senen. Distracting Dagii with a spell of confusion, Senen told Ekhaas to guide the others to refuge with the Kech Volaar and to warn their clan against the dangers of an alliance with Tariic. The heroes fled, vowing to stop Tariic’s mad ambition but unaware of what they had left behind …
Contents
Title Page
Map
Events of Word of Traitors
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About the Author
Copyright
CHAPTER
ONE
5 Aryth, 999 YK (late autumn)
The Darguul patrol—two bugbears and six hobgoblins—crept among the trees in near silence. Their armor had been padded to dampen the rattle of plates and mail. Their scabbards had been bound close. They had left their horses behind and placed their feet with care, avoiding sticks and dry leaves and the tufts of crackling, frost-stiff grass left by winter’s first breath on the foothills of the Seawall Mountains. They carried no light source and didn’t need one—goblin eyes saw as well by night as by day.
In the small camp ahead, four blanket-wrapped forms lay around the dim coals of a fire. The loudest sound in the night was the gentle snoring that came from one of those forms.
The patrol’s leader, a hobgoblin with the ceremonial scars of the Rhukaan Taash clan across his forehead, raised a hand, and the patrol halted beside a thick fir tree. The leader studied the camp ahead, then gestured. As the patrol resumed its stealthy approach, two pairs of soldiers split off to come at the camp from south and north.
Hidden among the thick boughs of the fir, Geth saw the patrol leader’s ears stand tall and his sharp teeth flash in a grin. The shifter knew what he was thinking: there would be honor and glory in Khaar Mbar’ost for the hero who brought back the heads of the would-be assassins of Lhesh Tariic Kurar’taarn.
Geth could have told the hobgoblin that honor and glory weren’t always the rewards of heroes. For the two days since they’d fled the city of Rhukaan Draal, rage and anguish had festered in him. Anguish for the murders of Ashi and Vounn. Rage at Makka for having killed them. Rage at Tariic and at Pradoor. Rage at Midian Mit Davandi for betraying them yet again. Rage at Aruget—or whatever the changeling Dark Lantern of Breland chose to call himself—for abandoning them.
Rage at himself for thinking he could try to save Haruuc’s dream of Darguun as a homeland for the dar, the three related races of hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears. The disaster in Rhukaan Draal was his making.
As the last hobgoblin passed, he tightened his grip on his sword, tensed his muscles—and exploded out of hiding, his roar shattering the silence.
Already on edge, the patrol whirled, and Geth buried Wrath deep in the gut of the first of Tariic’s soldiers. The hobgoblin’s falling body trapped the sword for a moment. Geth whipped his right arm up to catch on the armored sleeve of his great gauntlet the swift blow of a second soldier. The soldier’s blade skittered across black, magewrought steel, then Geth had Wrath free. With a grunt, he sliced at the soldier’s legs. The hobgoblin hopped back just in time.
At the fire, Ekhaas and Tenquis rose from their position as decoys. Out of the corner of his eye, Geth saw Chetiin, wrinkled face stained