The Tyranny of Ghosts_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [81]
“Wait.” Munta stopped her with a wave of his hand. “Skullreave?” She nodded. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?” Ashi tried to remember what Pater had said of the place. “It’s halfway between Olkhaan and Gorgonhorn.”
“And just as far from the Mournland as it is from either of them.” Munta hauled himself out of his chair and went to a shelf on the wall. Sorting through several rolls of paper, he selected one and unrolled it on the table. It was a map of Darguun and the surrounding regions, Ashi saw. Not terribly recent, but recent enough. Munta pointed at the location marked Olkhaan, northeast of Rhukaan Draal. “Less than a day’s march to the border of the Mournland.”
His finger moved to Gorgonhorn in the extreme north and east of the country. “Right on the border,” he said. His finger went to Skullreave, midway between the other two locations—but much father west. “Nearly a week’s march,” Munta said. “Useless if you’re fighting anything coming out of the Mournland.”
“But relatively safe from Valenar attacking across the border. That makes it a perfect supply base.” Ashi looked up from the map to see tension in Munta’s face. “Doesn’t it?”
“It looks like the perfect supply base,” the old warlord said somberly. “Haruuc thought the same thing twenty years ago. I helped him with the plans.”
“Plans for defense against the Valenar?” Ashi asked, then realized her mistake. “No, twenty years ago there was no Mournland. The Last War was still raging. Haruuc was planning a defense against reconquest by Cyre.”
“A good guess,” said Munta, “and that’s what outsiders were intended to assume. But the defense against Cyre was a ruse. The plans were for attack.” He put his finger back on Skullreave and moved it again, this time northwest around the end of the Seawall Mountains—and into Breland.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
13 Vult
The stone arch that had once been the gate of Suud Anshaar still stood, even though large sections of the wall to either side of it had collapsed into a heap of rubble. “Daashor work,” said Tenquis.
Ekhaas stepped up to the arch—somehow it felt more proper to enter this ancient site through the gate than through one of the gaps in the wall—and inspected what lay beyond. Anything made of wood had decayed long ago in the pervasive damp of the Khraal. Structures that had depended on wooden supports had fallen. What remained standing was a testament to the skill of Dhakaani craftsmen, masons, and, yes, daashor. Pillars and walls, flying buttresses and broken towers, vaults and more arches. More of Suud Anshaar lay sprawled across the ground than rose above it, but what did rise moved her. This had been a mighty fortress of Dhakaan. She could almost picture it in its glory—
The wail that rose above the ruins ended her reverie. The sound had been unnerving before. Up close it made her skin crawl and her ears go flat. None of them had put away their weapons. They brought them up as one and turned to put their backs together, each of them staring out into the gathering dusk. Ekhaas peered again through the arch, searching for any sign of movement beyond.
There was nothing. The wail could have condensed like rain out of the heavy air itself.
Marrow’s fur had risen in thick tufts along her spine. She swung her head back and forth, snuffling at the air, then gave a strange whine. “She doesn’t smell anything,” Chetiin translated.
Ekhaas thought of the legends of Tasaam Draet. “If the wail is the ghosts of Draet’s victims, there’s probably nothing to smell.”
“No,” Chetiin