Word of Traitors_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [81]
She turned and grasped Vounn’s shoulder, drawing on her dragonmark once more, but this time channeling its protection into her mentor. Heat like a fever flashed on her skin, then Vounn blinked and looked at her, the influence of the false rod banished. “Ashi, what—?”
“Don’t trust Tariic,” Ashi said. “Whatever happens, don’t trust him.” She released Vounn and turned away.
The lhesh had come down from the dais and was passing through the cheering crowd with Geth at his side. The shifter’s gaze was sharper now. His free arm rose and he started to wave along with Tariic. What was he doing? Ashi cursed under her breath and tried to push forward. The crowd resisted. She cursed again and wished that she were the size of a gnome—Midian could have slid through easily. Hopefully he had seen things as she had.
Makka passed along the aisle with Pradoor on his shoulder and she crouched down to avoid being seen. Through a gap among arms and elbows, Ashi watched her grandfather’s sword swing at the bugbear’s side. Her hands clenched and she forced her eyes away. So close to the stolen weapon and yet she couldn’t risk stealing it back. Not here. Not now.
When she looked up again, Tariic and Geth had reached the throne room doors. She was losing them! She shoved the nearest hobgoblin hard and his gaze finally shifted from Tariic. “Watch yourself, taat!” he snapped at her.
“Yes, sorry,” she said, pushing past him to the next obstacle in her way. “My fault. Excuse me—”
A commotion interrupted her and she looked up just in time to see Tariic batting aside his cloak. She heard Geth’s voice over the noise of the pipes, drums, and crowd. “No? I’ll do it myself.”
Past Tariic, she caught a glimpse of the shifter, free of the lhesh’s grasp, breaking past the guards that stood outside the throne room. Tariic did not look pleased. He summoned Daavn to his side with a sharp gesture and spoke to him in tones that did not carry. Daavn nodded and slipped ahead of Tariic, pointing to four guards who fell in behind him. Tariic turned back to the crowd in the throne room and waved the rod, raising another cheer, then resumed his progress as if nothing was wrong.
Ashi paused, uncertain of what to do. Try and find Geth or catch up to Tariic and watch him? Either option would be slow—
The hobgoblin she had shoved gave her a push. “Don’t just stand there!”
She glared at him, lips peeling back from her teeth in a snarl—then looked past him and realized that the whole crowd was moving, following Tariic out of the throne room. She could ride the current out.
Or she could swim against the stream. Snarl turning to a fierce smile, Ashi thrust herself against the moving crowd, forcing hobgoblins aside. The progress of the crowd toward the throne room doors was a slow shuffle, but in just a few moments she had reached the thin edge of the mass and vaulted onto the dais. With no one to block her way, she dashed across the dais to the door and the small room on its other side, and then into the corridor beyond.
Where had Geth gone? He wasn’t one to run from a fight, which, Ashi guessed, meant that he was running to something—his chamber and the rod. There would be no following him through the crowded antechamber outside the throne room, but there was always more than one way through Khaar Mbar’ost.
She started running.
Flight after flight of stairs passed under Geth’s feet. He had darted past three floors of the fortress before the sounds of pursuit echoed after him. He recognized Daavn’s voice calling more guards to the chase. He smiled without humor. A shifter was still faster than a hobgoblin. Thankfully, he met no one coming down the stairs—anyone who was of importance in Khaar Mbar’ost had been at the coronation and anyone who wasn’t would either be at work preparing for the feast to follow or in the streets celebrating. Another floor passed and another. His breath rasped in his lungs but he drove on. Another floor, then only one more to go. His chamber and the rod were close. Did he have time