The Tyranny of Ghosts: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 3 (20 page)

“I’m sorry, Ekhaas,” Geth said.

“Don’t be.” Ekhaas’s voice was harsh. “It could have been worse.”

“What will happen to Diitesh then?” Tenquis asked her as they made their way up the road and out of the valley. The
duur’kala
didn’t answer him, but Geth caught Tenquis’s eye, then nodded to a gang of goblin workers assembling a treelike frame beside the road at the valley’s edge.

“Something worse,” he said.

T
hey followed the foothills of the Seawall Mountains for several days before descending into the lowlands. Once out of the mountains, it was an easy matter to keep their distance from the scattered farmholds and clanholds of southern Darguun. They traveled through a landscape that was mostly barren, studded here and there with ancient ruins from the age of Dhakaan, but also with the remains of much more recent habitation by the humans of the vanished nation of Cyre. Charred, smashed, and overgrown, the rubble of Cyran farms and villages gave mute testimony to the upheaval the region had seen only thirty years before. This was the land where Haruuc had started his revolution before sweeping north. This was the land where the dream of Darguun had been born.

For the first time in her life, Ekhaas rode past the ruins and felt no pull to investigate them or learn their stories. As much as she tried to conceal the wrenching pain in her spirit, she couldn’t fool herself. She wasn’t entirely successful in fooling the others, either. As she exchanged watch duties one night with Geth, the shifter paused before sliding into his bedroll.

“It can’t be easy leaving your clan and your family,” he said.

She held her head high. “My clan exiled me, Geth,” she said, “and I don’t have a family anymore.” The words came out too harsh. She tried to soften them. “I know what you mean. I wish Ashi was here. She knows what it’s like to lose a clan.”

“She found a place in Deneith. You’ll find your place too.” Geth pulled his blankets up over himself. “You already have a family in us.”

She couldn’t help snorting. He turned to look at her, his eyes reflecting the firelight like an animal’s. “I could tell you a dozen stories where someone says just that,” she said.

“And what happens in them?”

“Usually everybody ends up dead.”

Geth propped himself up on one elbow. “Goblin stories can be bloody depressing. Did you know that?”

“Raat shi anaa
. ‘The story continues.’” She sat back against the trunk of a scraggly tree. “Sleep well, Geth.”

“Stay alert, Ekhaas.” He lay down again. Within moments, his breathing had fallen into an easy, regular rhythm. Ekhaas leaned her head back and looked up at the moons, closer to her than Volaar Draal.

Two weeks after leaving the towering gates of the City of the Word behind, they passed into the village of Arthuun. The contrast was … striking to say the least, Ekhaas thought. The gates were formed of massive, rough-cut logs hung from walls that were themselves a mix of dressed stone and improvised patches. Tenquis, staring at the walls as they rode through the gates, simply shuddered.

“I’m no mason,” he said, “but I could do better than that.”

“It stands up and keeps things out,” said Geth. “I think that’s all the people here are interested in.”

Ekhaas was inclined to agree with him. Built on wet ground between the broad Torlaac River and the green wall of the Khraal Jungle, Arthuun was a ramshackle place. Like most of the villages and towns in Darguun, it was cobbled together from the ruins of an earlier Cyran settlement and rough structures thrown
up by its new Darguul inhabitants. Arthuun seemed to have a particularly transient quality, as if people and buildings alike were just passing through on their way somewhere else.

Fortunately, there were enough non-
dar
—mostly ragged, tough-looking humans, but a few half-elves and one grime-stained warforged as well—on the muddy streets that no one paid much attention to Geth and Tenquis. Ekhaas had worried that Tariic might have put a bounty on their heads and circulated their description across Darguun. If such a description had reached Arthuun, it didn’t show. Marrow drew more looks than they did, mostly of deep unease and healthy respect. The worg seemed to enjoy the attention, and when they found a grubby building that advertised itself as an inn, she lay down on the porch, putting herself on display like some disconcerting sculpture.

“Be careful,” Chetiin warned her. “These are hard people. Bite them and they’ll bite you back.”

Marrow just whuffed and thumped her tail against the porch boards.

The innkeeper who came hustling across the common room to meet them was a halfling. Although a certificate by the door proclaimed the inn approved by the standards of House Ghallanda, Ekhaas had her doubts that any member of that dragonmarked house had ever set foot in the establishment.

“Two rooms,” Geth told him, “and information. We’re looking for a guide, someone who knows the Khraal.” He flipped the innkeeper a silver coin.

The halfling plucked it out of the air. “You want a hunter, then. Any of them that carry grinders will do.” He pointed to a rusty sword hung on one wall in a feeble attempt at decoration. The blade was wider than Ekhaas’s palm, but shorter than a typical sword and sharpened on only one edge, more like a farmer’s implement than a fighting weapon.

“Grinders?” asked Tenquis.

“Swing one of those against jungle vines for a morning, and you’ll know why.” The innkeeper pointed to another wall,
this one hung with a spear. “You see a hunter carrying one of those, he hunts across the river in the moors. You see someone carrying both weapons, you walk away—he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“If you were traveling into the Khraal, who would you want leading the way?” Geth asked him.

The halfling squinted and looked them over, then said, “Tooth. He’s a bugbear. You’ll probably find him at the Rat’s Tail over by the east wall.”

“Tavern?” said Geth. The innkeeper just smiled. Geth grunted and tossed him a second silver coin, then a third. “The last one’s for meat,” he added. “Take it to the worg on the porch.”

They found the Rat’s Tail without difficulty. It turned out to be less of a tavern than a kind of open-air drinking hall, the “walls” made of reed mats rolled up to allow the humid air of the village to circulate. Under the roof, though, it was as busy as any tavern Ekhaas had been in, with many of the same features: arguments, gambling, and drunkards.

Only one of the bugbears in the place wore an enormous fang more than a handspan long around his neck. Chetiin confirmed his identity with a harried goblin server just to be certain. It was Tooth.

He sat at a table, playing some sort of dice game with several other
dar
. Ekhaas studied him as they approached. His thick hair was streaked with pale stripes, and one of his big ears was ragged, a good-sized chunk apparently bitten out. His dark, glittering eyes seemed half-hidden by heavy lids—from beneath which, she realized as they got closer, the hunter was watching them.

They paused a few paces from the table. Tooth’s eyes flicked back and forth between them and the dice. Finally he gave a slight nod, then announced in Goblin, “Last throw for me.” His voice was a rumble. He scooped up the dice, shook them, and rolled them across the tabletop.

One of the hobgoblins crowed in victory and swept up a small heap of copper coins and shiny odds and ends. Bugbears
and hobgoblins thumped their chests at each other. Tooth stood up, and Ekhaas saw that he was surprisingly short for a bugbear, no taller than she was. He was massively muscled through the shoulders and chest, though, and when he picked up a belt from which two broad-bladed grinders dangled, she could easily picture him wielding the tools as weapons.

“You want to talk to me,” he said.

A statement, not a question. Ekhaas took the lead. “Yes,” she said. “Do you speak the human tongue?”

Tooth glanced at Geth and Tenquis, then said in that language, “I do.”

“Good.” They’d decided there was no need to reveal the magic in Wrath unless they had to. “We want to hire a guide to take us into the Khraal.”

He must have already assessed and judged them as fit to venture into the jungle because he didn’t hesitate before asking, “Where exactly?”

Ekhaas found an empty table and gestured for him to sit down. Tooth joined them without comment. Ekhaas leaned forward, dropping her voice. “Have you heard of the ruins of a place called Suud Anshaar?”

With generations of mothers using it to frighten their children, the name of Tasaam Draet was common enough among the Dhakaani clans. The tales of his downfall and haunted fortress were more esoteric, though, and Ekhaas didn’t know how well the legends might be known among the lowland Darguuls.

Tooth just narrowed his eyes. He looked like he might spit. “The Wailing Hill,” he said. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. I’ve never laid eyes on it, but hunters tell stories.”

“You know where it is?”

“I know to stay away from it. Anything that howls when it shouldn’t is warning you not to get any closer.” Ekhaas thought he might sit back, then, and declare their conversation over. But he didn’t. “They say people have come looking for it before. Hunters take them in—good hunters who know the
Khraal—but nobody comes out. Packs of varags live in that part of the jungle, and
they
don’t go near the place.”

“What are varags?” asked Geth.

“Savages related to hobgoblins the way shifters are related to lycanthropes,” said Tooth. “Completely fearless—usually.”

“When was the last time someone came looking for Suud Anshaar?” Ekhaas asked.

Tooth shrugged. “Before Lhesh Haruuc, before Arthuun belonged to us. Back when humans picked at the edge of the Khraal.” He looked them over again. “If you want to go there, it will cost you.”

“You’ll take us?” said Tenquis. “After all that?”

A grin showed all of Tooth’s sharp teeth. “Hunters tell stories. If I get you there and come back, I’ll be a legend.” He lowered his voice. “This is my deal: For what you pay me, I swear by Balinor’s blood to take you to Suud Anshaar, but I’m not going in. I’ll wait for you, guide you back, but if you don’t come out of the ruins, I’m leaving.”

Ekhaas understood immediately. If Tooth returned from Suud Anshaar—even if it was as the sole survivor of a doomed expedition—his reputation would be made. She looked to the others. Chetiin and Tenquis nodded, the tiefling a little more slowly than the goblin. Geth grinned.

“I like him,” he said with a nod at Tooth.

“Agreed then,” said Ekhaas.

Tooth’s grin grew even wider. “Good. Now let’s talk about how much I’ll charge you—”

“We’re inflexible on that,” said Chetiin. He held out a small fist. “But I believe this should do.” He opened his fingers to reveal three sparkling straw-colored topazes.

During their journey across Darguun, they’d realized that while they had some money between them, it wasn’t enough to persuade a guide to take them deep into the jungle in search of cursed ruins. Fortunately, Chetiin had the answer. Unraveling the stitching of his belt, he’d revealed a tiny, portable treasure.
“For emergencies,” he’d said as he sewed the leather back up.

The grin on Tooth’s face faltered, his eyes going wide in its place. Chetiin closed his fingers again. “When do we leave?” he asked. “Sooner is better.”