Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [173]
At the side of the platform, Pater d’Orien’s eyes went wide. He glanced up and met Ekhaas’s gaze, then his lips pressed together and his eyes lost focus as if he was gazing into the far distance. He took a small step—and vanished.
Somewhere far away, someone would learn very shortly of the murder of Vounn and Ashi d’Deneith.
And Ekhaas knew she wasn’t the only one to witness Pater’s disappearance. As the curtain of green vapor faded into drifting wisps, she saw Tariic staring with shock and dismay at the place where House Orien’s envoy had been.
Makka threw his head back and howled a second time, then spun to face Ekhaas and Geth. His body tensed, ready to leap—
Tariic’s voice cracked like thunder. “Makka, be still!”
The bugbear froze. Instantly. Completely.
Thought broke through Ekhaas’s shock. Their chance at escape was passing. She turned her horse sharply and reached out to grab the bridle of Geth’s horse, pulling it after her. The shifter was still staring at Ashi’s body, trembling with a rage so great it seemed he might shatter.
“Ride, Geth!” she ordered, but it was Chetiin who slid around Geth’s shaking body and snatched the reins from his hands. Tenquis slapped the horse on its hindquarters, then they were all galloping across the plaza, heading back the way they had come.
Ekhaas clutched her reins tight, expecting at any moment to hear the command from Tariic that would summon them all—or at least her and Tenquis—back, but it didn’t come. She heard Dagii shouting, ordering his men to protect Tariic. She heard more shouts as other warlords, knowing only that an attempt had been made on the lhesh’s life, tried to break free of the defensive lines and pursue them. She heard calls from the confused crowd.
And finally, just as they’d almost reached the edge of the plaza, she heard Tariic’s voice rise in a command that made her stomach lurch as if he’d called to her directly. “Dagii of Mur Talaan, stop them!”
She twisted her head and looked back over her shoulder to see Dagii turning his tiger after them, his face once more hard and cold. The rapidly thinning crowd that remained in the plaza scattered at the great cat took two huge bounds, closing at least a third of the distance between them.
Then they were around a corner onto an empty street and the plaza was out of sight. Ekhaas’s ears pressed back flat against her scalp. A horse could outpace the tiger in a distance race, but their horses had already run halfway across Rhukaan Draal. Dagii’s tiger was fresh. She looked at Tenquis, hunched over his horse’s neck, then at Chetiin and Geth. The shifter seemed to have come back to himself—he’d taken the reins from Chetiin, though his face was still twisted with rage and grief.
The same emotions gnawed at her. One day Makka—and Tariic—would pay for Ashi’s murder, but this wasn’t that day.
“Keep riding!” she snapped.
Geth looked at her, but she just looked away and reined in her horse, turning it around in the street. Behind her, hoofbeats slowed and Tenquis called her name. She ignored him.
Dagii’s tiger came leaping around the corner into the street, a streak of fire striped black and orange. Its master’s gray eyes fixed on her, and he raised his sword. Ekhaas’s hands tightened into fists. She drew breath, reached down into herself, and drew up magic.
The song that rolled along the street was not, however, hers. The voice that sang was high and clear. It danced and rippled, like sunlight falling on water or through the leaves of trees. It seemed to move around, coming first from a doorway, then a high window, then a deep shadow.
Dagii blinked and shook his head, allowing his tiger to slow to a walk as he looked around in confusion for the source of the music. Even the tiger seemed dazed.
Ekhaas held her horse still in the middle of the street as Dagii and his tiger came within a few