Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [15]
Vounn raised a slim eyebrow at the statement, but said nothing.
The throne-bearers were the first to return to the surface, followed by the three priests. The priest of Balinor stepped around to the side of the tomb and, straining hard, pushed. The massive door swung shut. Stone as thick as a dagger’s length moved ponderously but, once set in motion, smoothly. The dark doorway became a narrow gap, then a sliver. Then the great door closed with a solid boom—and a hollow crack as the pivots that had allowed it to swing broke as they had been designed to do. The tomb of Haruuc Shaarat’kor was sealed. From the front of the door, an effigy of Haruuc glared down, a fierce warrior and a mighty king at the height of his power, the guardian of his own grave.
Standing under that gaze, Geth raised the torch and the rod high above his head. “The time for mourning is done. We remember Haruuc’s death—but now we celebrate his life. Now the games begin!”
The cheer that rose from the warlords was not as powerful as that which had honored Haruuc, but it was joyful and enthusiastic. Ashi was certain that she even heard an echo of it from the common people who waited beyond the arch.
Geth began the descent of the ridge, new fire for the city held out before him, and warlords shifted in an attempt to be among the first to accompany him back into Rhukaan Draal. Ashi tried to catch his eye, to give him a simple gesture of encouragement and show him he had done well, but it was no good. There were too many people vying for his attention. She started to turn back to Vounn—
—and felt the back of her neck prickle with the sensation of being watched. An old hunter’s instinct. She glanced around. This wasn’t like it had been while the funeral procession moved through Rhukaan Draal. No crowd watched her here.
No crowd except the one beyond the arch. Ashi spun sharply.
And the feeling was gone. The crowd was already breaking up and streaming back into the city, eager for the start. If someone had been watching her, they’d needed only to turn away to lose themselves in the crowd. Ashi found her hand was back on the hilt of her sword. She trusted her instincts. Someone had been watching her. Who?
Her hand tightened on the sword. Chetiin?
“Ashi?”
The sound of her own name made her whirl. Her sword was halfway out of its sheath before she realized it was Ekhaas. The duur’kala’s ears rose at the sight of her blade. “Is something wrong?”
Ashi felt blood rush to her face and she shoved the blade back. “No.”
Ekhaas’s ears didn’t drop but she nodded. “Would you like to watch the start of the games together?”
The thought of a fight after the long period of mourning was good—it certainly seemed like a fitting tribute to Haruuc. Ashi looked back to the tomb, then nodded. “I’ll tell Vounn.”
She glanced at the arch and the moving crowd beyond one last time. Someone had been watching her. That didn’t mean it was Chetiin. With such a large crowd, it could have been anyone.
CHAPTER
THREE
When the bugbears of the White Stone tribe, savaged in the dark woods by a huge wolf that could only have been part demon, returned to their camp to find every hut ablaze, their children alive only by the dark gods’ whim, and the prisoners who had started it all escaped, their only choice was to flee. The wolf-demon had settled for the moment to feast on the bodies of fallen warriors. Their camp was on fire. The trolls that lived in the cursed valley below, that had for years kept to themselves in return for carcasses thrown down from the bugbear camp, were raging. Overnight, their haven in the Seawall Mountains had become too dangerous to hold.
So they fled, slipping away down the western approach to their high vale with the flames of their burning camp leaping high into the sky behind them. Then they started looking for