Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [80]
He had to get away from the new lhesh before then.
He raised his gauntlered arm and waved to the crowd in imitation of Tariic. The hobgoblin glanced at him and growled, “What are you doing?”
“The same thing you are,” Geth said through a false smile. He tried to find Ashi, but it was harder to see through the mass of waving arms from the floor than it had been from the dais.
“Where is the rod?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“You knew, didn’t you?” Tariic kept waving. “So did Chetiin. He did us all a favor by killing my uncle.”
Geth couldn’t find a reply to that but Tariic didn’t give him a chance to answer.
“Haruuc couldn’t master the rod—I felt it trying to reach him and I felt him holding it back. That was his mistake. Embrace the glories of Dhakaan and you become the master of the rod. I’m not going to make the mistake Haruuc did. Give me the true rod, Geth, and I’ll tame it. I’ll unlock its secrets.”
A chill ran through Geth. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Tariic.”
The doors of the throne room were getting closer. An honor guard waited on the other side, ready to escort Tariic—or obey his commands to whisk a treacherous shifter out of sight. Geth glanced back over his shoulder. The others who had participated in the coronation ritual had followed them down from the dais. Munta and Razu, the two he might have counted on for some kind of aid, were last and too far away. Aguus was paying more attention to the crowd than to the others in the procession. Pradoor and Makka—out of the question.
But Daavn darted ahead of the goblin and the bugbear. He walked just behind Tariic and Geth, strutting and waving as if he had taken the crown himself. Geth looked ahead once more, then, as they reached the doors, called back to the warlord of the Marhaan. “Daavn, go before us and announce the lhesh’s approach!”
Those lining the aisle heard. Makka and Pradoor heard. Daavn’s face tightened in suspicion. Tariic turned to look at his ambitious friend—and Geth twisted around, reaching between himself and the new lhesh to grab a fistful of fur and drag the trailing edge of the long tiger skin cloak forward.
It was a ridiculous, desperate trick, but it worked. The heavy cloak tangled between Tariic’s legs. Caught off guard and off balance, he stumbled. His raised arm came down, his grip eased momentarily, and Geth wrenched his hand free. Leaping ahead of the hobgoblin, he turned back and said loudly, “No? I’ll do it myself!”
He whirled again, ducking between the startled guards. The antechamber to the throne room flashed past him, then a corridor, then he was bounding up stairs two at a time, racing for his chamber like a fox before hounds.
The moment that Tariic slid the false rod out of Geth’s grasp, Ashi narrowed her eyes, focused her concentration, and drew on the power of her dragonmark. Warmth flashed through the colorful lines that patterned her body and a sharp clarity wrapped around her. The mark had protected her from the influence of the tainted dragon Dah’mir, the alien madness of one of the terrible daelkyr, and the commanding power of the true Rod of Kings—the magic Tenquis had woven into the false rod didn’t have a chance. She could even have fought it off on her own, but she needed all of her wits about her.
Suspicion made a hard lump in her belly. Something was very wrong. Geth’s eyes had a startled, hunted look to them as Tariic pulled him up to the edge of the dais. And when Razu proclaimed Tariic as the new lhesh, the shifter should have looked triumphant—but he didn’t. Protected by the power of her mark, Ashi knew she was probably the only one to notice that for all of Tariic’s apparent goodwill and pleasure, he gripped Geth’s