The Tyranny of Ghosts_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [86]
“Maabet,” rasped Tooth. “He’s lost it.”
“No,” said Ekhaas. “He hasn’t. Stay with him!” She jogged after Geth, catching up to him. “You feel the fragments through the sword, don’t you?” she asked. “Just like you felt the Rod of Kings. The connection is there!”
Geth shook his head. “It’s different. When duur’kala songs woke the connection between Wrath and the rod, all I had to do was hold out Wrath, and I knew where the rod was. This is more like a lodestone being drawn to steel.”
“The shield has been shattered. It’s bound to feel different—”
The wail rose again. This time there was no doubt that its source was close and coming closer—from the very direction they’d just come.
Tooth whirled at the sound. “It’s tracking us!”
“Stay calm and keep watch,” said Ekhaas. “Geth …”
“Here.” He stopped, sword pointing at a thin scattering of rubble across the floor. “They’re here!”
“You’re sure?” Ekhaas asked. They’d almost reached the end of the hall. A low dais rose no more than a double handspan above the floor. It seemed a strange place to display relics given by the emperor as a reward. A fearful thought struck her. “They’re not underground from here, are they? Not in some buried vault?”
“No. They’re close.” He dropped to his knees, set Wrath down, and started tossing fallen stones aside.
The first stones he moved revealed part of a Goblin inscription carved into the floor. It was only a single word, but it made Ekhaas’s heart jump.
Shattered.
“Tenquis, help us!” She bent down beside Geth and swept more rubble away. The tiefling crouched on Geth’s other side. It took only moments to clear the rest of the inscription.
LOOK ON SHATTERED MUUT AND BE HUMBLED.
The top of the inscription lay toward the dais. Anyone kneeling before the lord of Suud Anshaar would have had no choice but to read the words. “The fallen nobles,” said Ekhaas. “He was reminding the fallen nobles of what they’d lost.” She scrambled past the words to rake at the remaining rubble. Her breath came fast. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears.
Purple byeshk flashed under moonlight. Ekhaas got down on her knees, stretched out her arm, and used it to sweep away the last fragments of stone.
Her heart fell. She sat back, her ears folding flat.
Set into the stone were three toothed metal disks. Three shaari’mal forged from byeshk. She looked up at Geth and Tenquis. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What are these?”
Geth picked up Wrath and brought it close to the embedded disks. “These are what I was feeling,” he said. “These were forged from the same byeshk as the sword and the rod.”
“But they’re shaari’mal. They’re not pieces of a shield. Unless”—she glanced at Tenquis—“could they have been reforged?”
The tiefling shook his head. “You don’t just reforge an artifact, even one that was broken.”
Ekhaas reached out and touched one of the disks. Strange runes had been carved into the smooth surface. They weren’t Goblin or any other language she knew, but she had seen them, or runes very much like them, before—etched into the Sword of Heroes and the Rod of Kings.
The Stela of Rewards in Volaar Draal had shown an engraving of three shaari’mal. Were these what the emperor had given Tasaam Draet? Were they meant to be a symbol of Dhakaan? She couldn’t deny that they seemed to be related to the rod and the sword, but what were they? She rubbed her head with dusty fingers—and froze as the wail came yet again, so close she felt it through the floor. So close it made the weakened walls of the hall groan.
“Geth! Ekhaas!” said Chetiin sharply. Ekhaas twisted around. Chetiin, Tooth, and Marrow faced the end of the hall where they’d entered. Beyond the arched doorway, the crossed pillars they’d all crawled under were trembling as if something strained against the other side.
Ekhaas made a decision. “We’re taking these with us,” she said. “Geth, look for the best