Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [34]
Instantly, Keraal was back on his feet and racing around the ettin even as the two-headed creature tried to shake the chain loose. Keraal caught its other leg inside the loop of chain, and hauled back with all of his strength. Muscles strained under his scarred skin.
The ettin’s legs were pulled together, then wrenched out from under it. Arms flailing, it crashed faces first to the ground. Keraal dropped the chain and charged, jumping up onto its broad shoulders and leaping high.
He came down with both feet together on the back of the creature’s right head. Even with the shouts of the crowd ringing in the arena, Ekhaas thought she heard a distinct crack as the head’s face was smashed into the sand. The left head bellowed in shared agony. The ettin heaved, trying to turn itself over.
Keraal dragged the club out of its slack right fist, wrapped both of his hands around the heavy timber, and lifted it. The ettin saw the raised club and tried to get its shield up, but its left arm was supporting most of its weight. It dropped as if it could roll away, but Keraal swung first. The club came down square on the left head. Bone crunched. The ettin managed a feeble roar. Keraal, silent, swung the club again.
The skull shattered and collapsed. Blood and brain spattered the hobgoblin. The ettin’s right head jerked and screamed. Keraal turned to it and swung the heavy club a third time.
The crowed roared in delight. Keraal flung down the club and turned to look up at Geth. Shifter and hobgoblin faced each other in silence, neither moving for a moment, then Keraal turned to Tariic and thumped his chest with his fist in a mocking salute. Tariic’s ears pressed back flat against his skull.
The arena resounded to the cheers and applause of the crowd.
Geth knew Dagii and Ekhaas had arrived when he heard song in the hall outside his door. It was a beautiful, soft song, strange and broken as all dar songs were to someone who hadn’t grown up with them, but still soothing. It reminded Geth of warm nights looking up at the stars and Eberron’s twelve moons and the hazy glow of the Ring of Siberys that dominated the southern sky.
He jerked back to alertness as the door of his chamber opened and Ekhaas entered. The duur’kala was wearing plain, drab clothes and a loose scarf that hid half her face but left room for her large and mobile ears. “Geth? Are you ready? The guards won’t sleep for—” Her eyes landed on him and she stopped. “What’s that?”
Geth pulled the enveloping cloak that he wore more tightly about himself. The hood hid his face better than Ekhaas’s scarf hid hers—in fact, he could barely see to either side. “You said to disguise myself because too many people recognize me.”
“So we wouldn’t attract attention. Now you look like someone trying to disguise himself. Get that off and we’ll try something else.”
Growling, he shook the cloak off—then growled again as Ekhaas squeezed her eyes shut and bent her ears down. “What?”
“We’re not going to be able to cover that.” She rapped the great gauntlet that covered his right arm.
A sleeve of magewrought black steel plates, studded with flat spikes on the forearm and short hooks on the back of the hand, the gauntlet was all the armor he needed. It was light. It was strong. Paired with a sword in his left hand, it made a second weapon that had surprised many opponents over the years. What it wasn’t was inconspicuous.
“I was wearing the cloak to cover it and Wrath!” He slapped the sword at his side.
“Hurry!” Dagii’s voice came low from the hall.
Ekhaas’s ears bent even further. “There isn’t time to take it off. Just hold still.” She concentrated on his face for a moment, her amber eyes intense, then raised a hand and sang a brief rippling passage of song. Geth had experienced Ekhaas’s duur’kala magic many times before, and each time it felt as though he had been dipped in some wild spring that bubbled with the primal music of the world’s creation. This time the music still