Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [78]
At Ashi’s side, Senen let out a soft hiss. Ashi looked at her. “What is it?”
“The ritual humbling,” said Senen. “By tradition, warlords of the Ghaal’dar Clans are confirmed in their position by priests of the Dark Six, but first they must kneel before the priest to show their respect for the Six. She won’t raise the crown to put it on his head. He’ll have to lower himself.”
“But she’s a goblin. Tariic will have to practically lie on the floor!”
“It is the tradition,” Senen said with a certain satisfaction.
On the dais, Tariic stepped before the goblin woman and said in a ringing tone, “Pradoor, I honor the Six and crave their blessing. You will stand at my side and I will listen to your guidance.” He paused and a wry smile crept across his face. “But the emperors of Dhakaan did not crawl before priests, and neither will I.”
He reached down and plucked the crown from her hands. Turning to face the assembled warlords and ambassadors, he placed it on his head. “I name myself Lhesh Tariic Kurar’taarn!”
Once again, confusion swept through the throne room.
“Tradition, you say?” Pater asked Senen.
The ambassador of the Kech Volaar actually looked both surprised and strangely pleased. “He embraces a tradition older than the Ghaal’dar Clans,” she said with amazement in her voice. “Until the empire began to decline into the Desperate Times, the Dhakaani emperors acknowledged no power greater than their own. I didn’t think it was something widely known or respected outside of the Dhakaani clans.”
Ashi watched Makka’s face twist with rage, and the face of the goblin woman, Pradoor, go from confusion to anger … to amusement. Her voice rose, thin and shrill but more powerful than Ashi would have expected. “May your reign last as long as your strength and cunning, lhesh, and the Six show you their favor all your days!”
There was something in the blessing that brought a chill to Ashi’s skin, but the Darguuls seemed to pay it no mind. Tentatively at first, then in a great rush, applause and cheering put an end to the silence. Pradoor turned and groped her way back to Makka and her place behind the throne while Tariic turned and stretched his hands out over the crowd in a blessing of his own.
Razu rapped her staff against the floor, but the sound was almost inaudible and she was forced to gesture for Geth to come forward. Ashi’s heart seemed to slow. This was the moment they had waited days for. Giving Makka and Pradoor a wide berth, Geth approached Tariic with the false rod, grasped in his gauntleted hand, held out before him. Tariic turned to face him, triumph and eagerness written on his face. Shifter and hobgoblin nodded to each other, and Geth knelt down and extended the rod. Tariic drew a slow breath, preparing himself for the final ritual of his coronation, then he reached down and closed his fingers around the byeshk shaft.
He froze. His face tightened. He leaned close to Geth and whispered something to him. The shifter stiffened.
Ashi’s heart might have stopped altogether. She felt Vounn’s hand on her arm and heard the lady seneschal ask, “Ashi?”
Words felt thick on her tongue. “Something’s wrong,” she said.
Geth could see the frustration in Razu’s eyes. The old hobgoblin lived for ritual and the coronation, her shining moment, had been spoiled, first by Makka and Pradoor’s unexpected appearance, then by Tariic’s startling crowning of himself. When the crowd drowned out the sound of her staff, he half-expected her to delay the ceremony until the cheers faded.
Don’t, he willed the mistress of rituals. Just keep going. Finish it!
When she turned and gestured for him to go ahead, he almost gasped with relief. If he hadn’t been holding the false rod in his armored hand, it probably would have slid right out of his sweating palm.
Makka’s glares had been redirected to Tariic, but Geth still stepped wide around him and Pradoor, then fixed his eyes on the new lhesh and crossed the dais. His mouth was as dry as his palms were wet. Tariic,