The Doom of Kings: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 1 (11 page)

Tariic bared his teeth at her blunt confrontation. His ears bent back and his grip on the sealed scroll shifted. If it had been a weapon, Ashi would have said he was ready to strike with it. She tensed, ready to defend herself and—reluctantly—Vounn. Her mentor, however, didn’t flinch. She just kept her eyes on Tariic, and after a moment, his snarling lips stretched back into a hard grin. “You’ll do well in Rhukaan Draal, Vounn.”

“I haven’t agreed to go yet,” she told him. “Why does Haruuc really want an ambassador from Deneith at his court?”

“He’s getting old,” Tariic said simply. He set the scroll down on the table and sat back in his chair. “He was a young warrior when
he led the uprising that created Darguun, but that was thirty years ago. He’s not going to be on the throne forever and he knows it. He’s going to have to name a successor soon, and when he does, he wants to be sure that Deneith’s relationship with his successor is as strong as it is with him. Darguun needs Deneith. Our trade with other nations is still developing—practically the only thing we export is mercenaries.”

“And why me?” asked Vounn. “Redek is already in Darguun, and as you say, he’s a fine trader in mercenaries.”

Tariic’s dark skin darkened even further. “You cut hard, Vounn.
Ban
, Redek is a good businessman, but he’s hardly known outside of Darguun. Haruuc wants you because people—
powerful
people—across Khorvaire know your name. The friendship of Deneith has given Darguun legitimacy. If you know and can speak for Haruuc’s chosen successor, it will give him legitimacy in the eyes of the rulers of Khorvaire as well.” He bent his head. “Haruuc wants Deneith’s public support. Does that answer your questions?”

Vounn sat silent for a long moment, then she bent her head in return. “Admirably.” Her face was still neutral, but Ashi could read the triumph in her movements as she reached out and took the scroll from the table. Ashi’s heart rose as well and she fought to keep the joy she felt inside as Vounn continued. “The matter will need to go before the patriarch for his blessing, but surely—”

Ekhaas, who had sat silent through the entire conversation, cleared her throat. “There is one other thing.”

Vounn stopped and looked at her, but Tariic was the one who added an explanation. “Haruuc would very much like for you to bring Ashi along. He has heard of your training of her and would like to meet the bearer of the Siberys Mark of Sentinel.”

Ashi’s joy sputtered like a candle’s flame, then leaped even higher. The idea of being out from under Vounn’s thumb was one thing, but the possibility of traveling again, of leaving Karrlakton to see Darguun and meet Lhesh Haruuc was something else. She looked to Vounn—

—just as her mentor slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry. That isn’t possible. Ashi can’t be allowed to leave Sentinel Tower until her training is complete.”

“Vounn!”

The word burst from her in a cry of fury and anguish, but Vounn didn’t even acknowledge it. Ekhaas and Tariic both looked at her sharply, however, before Tariic turned back to Vounn. “I understand Ashi’s value to your House. I can assure you that she’ll be safe. I guarantee it. My uncle will guarantee it.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Vounn said. “But the fact is that Ashi can’t be trusted to go. You saw how she acted last night.”

Ekhaas’s ears rose. “I know how she acted last night. I also know how she acted before she came to House Deneith. You’ve tried to make a lady out of a savage, Vounn d’Deneith, but you’ve only made a girl out of a woman.”

Vounn looked at her again, her eyes hard. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“Ekhaas!” said Tariic sharply. Ekhaas didn’t sit back, but she closed her mouth and said nothing more.

Understanding grew in Vounn’s eyes, however. “The hobgoblin from Ashi’s adventures,” she said. “I should have realized. Did Haruuc send you as a companion for Ashi?”

“Ekhaas’s role in my delegation is my concern alone.” Tariic spoke with steel in his voice. “You know how exceptional this invitation is, Vounn. Haruuc wouldn’t withdraw it. He can’t withdraw it without being shamed. He wouldn’t, however, look kindly on having a simple request denied. Is that how you want your tenure in his court to begin?” His voice softened. “She doesn’t have to stay. Haruuc only wants to meet her. A time of change is coming for Darguun, Vounn. Don’t you want to have an honored place at the center of that change?”

Once again, Vounn was still and silent. This time, Ashi didn’t say anything. Neither did Tariic or Ekhaas. After a time, Vounn lifted her head and looked Tariic in the eye.

“I’m pleased to accept Lhesh Haruuc’s invitation to join his court,” she said coolly, “provided that Baron Breven d’Deneith grants me permission to go. The patriarch will also need to give his permission for Ashi d’Deneith to accompany me.” Vounn rose, then paused. “In exchange for the favor that Lhesh Haruuc has shown me, I present a token of my esteem for him.”

She set the reliquary on the table. Ashi thought Ekhaas’s eyes might roll right out of her head. Vounn, however, didn’t stop to appreciate the triumph of her gesture. She turned and marched to the door. “Ashi!”

Her heart racing with excitement, Ashi flashed Ekhaas a quick smile and went after her mentor.

“Vounn,” she murmured as they swept past the guards and along the hall back to the inner zone of Sentinel Tower, “thank you.”

“Tell
no one
what happened in that room,” said Vounn without looking at her. “Don’t thank me again. And don’t go against me before we go or I’ll find a way to leave you here if it means crippling you.”

“Yes, Vounn.” Ashi bent her head so that the lady seneschal wouldn’t see her smile. Now she understood why Ekhaas had urged her to apologize to Vounn at the watch station the night before.

Then she almost stumbled over her feet as she realized something else from her conversation with the
duur’kala
. She froze in the corridor, thinking it through.

“Ashi!” snapped Vounn from ahead.

“Coming,” Ashi said and hurried to catch up. Her mind was still working though. Ekhaas hadn’t known until last night that Vounn was her mentor—she hadn’t known that Ashi was in Karrlakton at all. If she hadn’t known, how had Haruuc? Or did he know?

Ekhaas and Tariic had just lied to them.

T
he official meetings between the delegation from Darguun and House Deneith carried on for another week. While Ekhaas watched for Ashi, she didn’t see her again. Vounn was, of course, at every meeting, from the most mundane to the purely ceremonial. Ekhaas suspected that she was deliberately keeping Ashi in seclusion, maybe as a way of venting her frustration at being forced into bringing her charge to Haruuc’s court. The lady seneschal’s frustration showed at the meeting tables too. Every draft agreement that came before her was negotiated as if it were the Treaty of Thronehold or as if Vounn were not about to depart for a position where she would have Haruuc’s ear and the ability to influence any dispute that might arise. Tariic said nothing about it, however, so neither could Ekhaas, stuck at the back of any gathering of delegates as she was. Officially nothing more than a representative of the interests of the Kech Volaar in Tariic’s delegation, her lips were sealed and her hands tied.

Of Haruuc’s invitation to Vounn, nothing more was said. For all that Vounn revealed, the small scroll might never have been delivered. Ekhaas felt like she might chew a hole in her table as she waited through meeting after meeting. On the next to last day before they were due to leave Karrlakton, Tariic, Vounn, and Baron Breven d’Deneith, patriarch of the house, emerged from a private discussion to make the grand announcement that Vounn would become Deneith’s envoy to the court of Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor. The excitement that swept Sentinel Tower was astounding. Within
an hour, the Darguuls of Tariic’s party went from being looked upon with suspicion to being greeted as allies. Ekhaas overheard more than one conversation declaring Vounn would be remembered as the new Jannes d’Deneith, responsible for bringing even greater wealth and influence to the House.

There was no word of whether Ashi would be joining Vounn, though. As soon as she had a chance, Ekhaas slipped up behind Tariic as he mingled at a reception. She didn’t even need to ask the question—as soon as she caught Tariic’s eye, he nodded and mouthed, “She’s coming,” before turning away to chat with some Karrn junior underminister of harvests. Ekhaas felt as if a yoke had been lifted from her shoulders.

Or at least as if one yoke had been lifted. Others still weighed her down, and they’d still be there through another week.

The Darguuls departed Karrlakton on the twenty-second day of the month of Lharvion with as much spectacle and ceremony as when they had arrived. They formed up in a courtyard near one of Sentinel Tower’s wide gates, and Ekhaas finally caught a glimpse of Ashi. Her friend, shrouded again in her ever-present scarf, stood quietly behind Tariic and Vounn. After a pretty speech by Breven d’Deneith, the trio climbed into an open carriage. To the cheers of House Deneith, their procession—led by House guards from Sentinel Tower marching alongside a unit of the Karrlakton watch—paraded out into the city and through the streets toward the ship that waited in the harbor. As they went, increasing numbers of people came out to stare at the goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears with their flashing armor and thunderous war music. The tigers of the cavalry probably would have drawn even more awestruck excitement from the crowd, but they had already been taken down to the ship, along with any baggage, during the quiet of the night. At some point the crowd of city-dwellers began cheering Tariic as well, and he waved at them from his carriage. They likely, Ekhaas suspected, had no idea whom they were cheering for, but they cheered anyway.

At the harbor, more officials of Deneith and even some of Karrlakton waited to make more farewell speeches. Tariic and Vounn stood to accept them while soldiers and councilors shifted with poorly disguised impatience. Eventually, however, they were all on board the ship and lines were being cast off. The ship’s captain, a half-elf of House Lyrandar, called hands to stations, then gripped the ship’s wheel. From where she stood on the deck, Ekhaas saw a look of concentration cross his face as he invoked the dragonmark of his house. The morning air stirred in response and the sails of the ship filled. They began to move, and Karrlakton fell away behind them.

The first part of their journey lay west along the long arm of Scion’s Sound that formed the border between Karrnath and what had once been Cyre but was now only the Mournland, blasted and cursed in the final days of the Last War. The captain kept his ship as close to the Karrnathi coast as possible without grounding her, but the arm of the sound was narrow and the unmoving bank of dead gray mist that cloaked the Mournland loomed over them. From time to time, weird cries and howls echoed out of the mist, provoking answering snarls from the tigers caged below deck. More substantial and threatening things had been known to emerge from the mists, and every Darguul soldier on the ship stood at the rail, eyes on the mist, ears raised, hands on weapons.

Ekhaas stood with them, all the tales of the Mournland that she’d ever heard running through her mind. When a quiet footfall came on the deck behind her, she barely noticed it. When Ashi whispered her name, she all but jumped.
“Khaavolaar!”

“Sorry,” said Ashi. “Can I join you?”

She’d changed, Ekhaas noted, out of the formal robes she’d worn in the carriage and into clothes like those she’d worn the night they’d encountered each other at the memorial. Her scarf was loosened to show her face, and her sword was on her hip. She was ready to fight if necessary.

“Does Vounn know you’re up here?” Ekhaas asked her.

“She’s in her cabin,” said Ashi. It didn’t really answer the question, but Ekhaas suspected it was as close to “no” as Ashi was
willing to go. She made room for Ashi at the rail, and for a time they watched in silence as the mist glided past.

Eventually Ashi spoke. “You lied,” she said. “Haruuc hasn’t asked to see me.”