The insidious influence of the Rod of Kings on a proud warlord made Ashi grind her teeth in anger. She remembered standing with Munta in the hall of honor and listening to his complaints before Tariic had gotten his hands on the rod. The lord of the Gantii Vus had been angry, not mewling and servile. That was as compelling a reason as any to block Tariic’s plans!
“Tariic doesn’t invite you to court?” she asked.
“He invited me to stay away,” Munta said bitterly. “I’ve been set aside, an ‘honor’ for my service to Haruuc. I haven’t seen the lhesh in weeks.”
“Good.” Ashi reached out, laid a hand on Munta’s arm, and drew on the power of her dragonmark. It flashed hot across her skin, then passed into Munta. He drew a sharp breath, as if he’d been plunged into icy water, and stumbled. Ashi caught his arm and held him up. “Munta?”
“Maabet!” he cursed. He blinked as if waking from a dream. “What was that?”
“My dragonmark shielding you. How do you feel?” She looked at him closely. “How do you feel about Tariic?”
“Tariic? I … he …” Munta frowned. “Why do I want to drop down on my knees before him?”
“Oraan, watch the door,” said Ashi. “Make sure no one disturbs us. Munta, you need to sit down.”
She told him the story of the Rod of Kings as quickly and briefly as she could. Haruuc’s fall under the rod’s curse and Tariic’s discovery of its power. The truth of their attempt to kill Tariic before he could take possession of the rod. Their failure. Tariic’s utter dominance of the warlords—including him. “The protection of my dragonmark will only last for a day,” she said. “If you want to stay free of the rod’s power, you need to leave Rhukaan Draal and avoid Tariic.”
Munta bared teeth that were yellowed but still sharp. “I’ll be leaving,” he said. “Tariic has earned an enemy in the Gantii Vus!”
“Don’t defy him,” said Ashi. “He has all the power. He could destroy your clan without hesitating—I know that he would.” She’d left Oraan’s true identity and Dagii’s most recent involvement out of her story, just in case Munta fell under Tariic’s influence again after all. She hoped it wouldn’t happen, but Tariic seemed to have a way of defying hope itself.
Munta nodded. “We’ll join the Silent Clans and go into hiding if we have to.” He looked at her, though, his eyes glittering with his old cunning. “But you didn’t free me just to give me a warning, did you? You could have done that weeks ago. What do you want from me?”
“What I said in the street. Your experience.” She rose from a crouch beside him and paced the room. “Tariic is building up an army along the border of the Mournland, but that doesn’t make sense. I know I’m missing something. Tariic says it’s all to counter the Valenar, but there’s been no Valenar activity since Dagii defeated them at Zarrthec. Tariic has been buying the services of dragonmarked houses too. He’s got troops and supplies and hirelings pouring into the Darguul towns and villages closest to the Mournland.” She ticked off on her fingers the destinations of Orien caravans that she’d learned from Pater. “Zarrthec, Olkhaan, Skullreave, Gorgonhorn—”
“Wait.” Munta stopped her with a wave of his hand. “Skullreave?” She nodded. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?” Ashi tried to remember what Pater had said of the place. “It’s halfway between Olkhaan and Gorgonhorn.”
“And just as far from the Mournland as it is from either of them.” Munta hauled himself out of his chair and went to a shelf on the wall. Sorting through several rolls of paper, he selected one and unrolled it on the table. It was a map of Darguun and the surrounding regions, Ashi saw. Not terribly recent, but recent enough. Munta pointed at the location marked Olkhaan, northeast of Rhukaan Draal. “Less than a day’s march to the border of the Mournland.”
His finger moved to Gorgonhorn in the extreme north and east of the country. “Right on the border,” he said. His finger went to Skullreave, midway between the other two locations—but much father west. “Nearly a week’s march,” Munta said. “Useless if you’re fighting anything coming out of the Mournland.”
“But relatively safe from Valenar attacking across the border. That makes it a perfect supply base.” Ashi looked up from the map to see tension in Munta’s face. “Doesn’t it?”
“It looks like the perfect supply base,” the old warlord said somberly. “Haruuc thought the same thing twenty years ago. I helped him with the plans.”
“Plans for defense against the Valenar?” Ashi asked, then realized her mistake. “No, twenty years ago there was no Mournland. The Last War was still raging. Haruuc was planning a defense against reconquest by Cyre.”
“A good guess,” said Munta, “and that’s what outsiders were intended to assume. But the defense against Cyre was a ruse. The plans were for attack.” He put his finger back on Skullreave and moved it again, this time northwest around the end of the Seawall Mountains—and into Breland.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
13 Vult
The stone arch that had once been the gate of Suud Anshaar still stood, even though large sections of the wall to either side of it had collapsed into a heap of rubble. “Daashor work,” said Tenquis.
Ekhaas stepped up to the arch—somehow it felt more proper to enter this ancient site through the gate than through one of the gaps in the wall—and inspected what lay beyond. Anything made of wood had decayed long ago in the pervasive damp of the Khraal. Structures that had depended on wooden supports had fallen. What remained standing was a testament to the skill of Dhakaani craftsmen, masons, and, yes, daashor. Pillars and walls, flying buttresses and broken towers, vaults and more arches. More of Suud Anshaar lay sprawled across the ground than rose above it, but what did rise moved her. This had been a mighty fortress of Dhakaan. She could almost picture it in its glory—
The wail that rose above the ruins ended her reverie. The sound had been unnerving before. Up close it made her skin crawl and her ears go flat. None of them had put away their weapons. They brought them up as one and turned to put their backs together, each of them staring out into the gathering dusk. Ekhaas peered again through the arch, searching for any sign of movement beyond.
There was nothing. The wail could have condensed like rain out of the heavy air itself.
Marrow’s fur had risen in thick tufts along her spine. She swung her head back and forth, snuffling at the air, then gave a strange whine. “She doesn’t smell anything,” Chetiin translated.
Ekhaas thought of the legends of Tasaam Draet. “If the wail is the ghosts of Draet’s victims, there’s probably nothing to smell.”
“No,” Chetiin said with a frown. “She doesn’t smell anything. There’s nothing alive here. Nothing.”
“That’s impossible,” said Tenquis, but Ekhaas could tell he didn’t believe his own words. The evidence was in front of them—rocks and rubble bare of even the hardiest grass.
The stories said the Dhakaani travelers who had first discovered Suud Anshaar’s fate had found the fortress utterly empty of life. Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword.
“Where do we start?” asked Geth. “Do you think there are lower levels? The fragments of the shield could have been stored in a vault.”
“Remember what the Stela of Rewards said,” Ekhaas reminded him. “Tasaam Draet was ‘given the care of the symbols of muut forfeited by those lords whose treachery he has ended’ as if that was some kind of reward. Legends also depict Draet as arrogant in his power. Someone like that would want to show off his reward. I think the fragments of the shield would have been displayed somewhere public.”
She looked at the ruins again and pointed to a distant shell of nearly intact walls and soaring arches that lay among them like an egg in a cradle. “Dhakaani builders usually put throne rooms at the heart of a palace. The seat of a great lord would be in a similar hall. That’s the place to start.”
“That sounds good,” said Geth. He stepped into the mouth of the gate
.
“What? Wait!” said Tooth. The bugbear had been quieter than Chetiin, but his eyes went wide with fear. “We’re going in tonight? Shouldn’t we wait until the sun rises?”
“The moons give enough light. Do you want to sleep here?” Geth asked.
Tooth’s big ears twitched down a bit. “You can stay outside the gates, Tooth,” Ekhaas told him. “You don’t have to come in. That was our agreement.”
Somewhere in the distance, the shriek of a varag rose over the jungle. Tooth’s ears sagged a little more.
“Maabet” he cursed—and lifted his grinders. “Fight a wolf, fight the pack. I’m coming.”
The way through the ruins was slow. Suud Anshaar hadn’t just been a single fortress—it had been a complex and a large one at that. The rubble of buildings blocked their way, forcing them over or around heaps of stones that sometimes seemed dangerously unstable. Chetiin moved with ease, but the rest of them had to pick their way. The lack of plant life was something of a blessing, if an unnerving one. The shadows cast by the ruins in the moonlight were deceptive and their sightlines already uncomfortably short. Ekhaas was glad she didn’t have to worry about pushing through trees and bushes as well. She still found herself peering into every corner and behind every crumbling column, waiting for the attack she knew in her gut was coming.
Maybe that was why she was the first to see the skeleton.
She spotted it almost out of the corner of her eye, a silhouette framed within a stone window against the night sky. Visions of the undead, of dry bones to accompany bodiless, howling ghosts burst over her. She grabbed Geth and pointed—silently. The thing hadn’t moved. Maybe it hadn’t seen them.
Ekhaas felt Geth stiffen under her hand, then he hissed to get the attention of the others. Tenquis almost jumped. Tooth and Marrow both froze motionless like the hunters they were. Chetiin, however, glanced once at the skeleton, then burst into motion. Like an independent shadow, he darted across the ground, paused beneath the wall in which the window frame was set, then swarmed up the stones and through the frame. Ekhaas saw the brief glint of moonlight on steel—then Chetiin paused, as still as the skeleton. After a moment, he lowered his knife, reached out, and touched the skeleton.
It still didn’t move. Balanced on the window frame, the goblin turned and gestured for them all to join him.
“What is this?” Geth growled, but he followed as Ekhaas moved out under the window. Up above, Chetiin was examining the skeleton closely. Keeping one leg on the windowsill, he stretched the other across and rested it on the skeleton’s bony hip, then reached up and heaved at the thing’s skull.
It came off in his hands with an audible crack. The shock must have broken whatever balance kept the rest of the skeleton together, because it crumbled suddenly. Chetiin hopped back to the windowsill as the bones clattered down behind the wall like a small avalanche. Ekhaas’s ears flicked.
“That sounded heavy for bones,” she said.
“It did,” Geth agreed.
“They’re not bones,” Chetiin called softly from above. “Geth, catch this. Be careful.” He held out the skull with both hands. Geth caught it with a grunt. Ekhaas heard it scrape against the metal of his gauntlet and stepped up for a closer look as Geth held it into a shaft of moonlight.
It wasn’t bone at all, but dark, slightly glittering stone. And yet it was a perfect, if weathered, copy of a hobgoblin skull. The finer details had been erased by time and exposure, but all of the ridges, all of the crevices that Ekhaas would have expected to find in a real skull were there. Even the jaw was properly jointed, though it broke away as Geth attempted to move it. He cursed like a child caught damaging something precious, but Ekhaas took it from him and inspected the interior surface. More protected from the weather, it retained every line and pockmark.
Tenquis stared over her shoulder. “If that’s daashor work, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“Dhakaani sculpture was never this realistic,” said Ekhaas.
“I don’t think it was a sculpture,” Chetiin said as he came spidering down the wall. “There were stone ligaments holding it together. I think it was a real skeleton that had been changed to stone.”
“Khaavolaar,” breathed Ekhaas.
“Could it have been done by a medusa?” asked Tooth. “Or a basilisk? No hunter has ever seen one in these parts, but this is old.”
“Medusas and basilisks change living flesh to stone,” Tenquis said. “Their victims look like statues. I’ve seen them. Magic might change a skeleton to stone.” He looked back up to the window. “But why pose one like that?”
A yip from Marrow brought them around. The worg crouched beside another collapsed wall, pawing at something. Geth handed the skull to Ekhaas and went over. He bent down and brushed away dry dirt, then shifted a rock. His teeth flashed as he bared them. “There’s another one here. Crushed. I think the wall fell on it.” He picked something out of the ground and held it up. It was a battered and corroded metal greave. “This one was wearing armor.”
Tenquis examined it. “Dhakaani design,” he said.
Ekhaas shivered and set skull and jaw down on the ground. A frightening suspicion was growing in her. “Stay close, but look around,” she said. “See if you can see any more.”
Geth looked up at her. “You think these were the people of Suud Anshaar? But the stories don’t mention this.”
“I’m starting to understand that sometimes the stories aren’t completely right.”
They found four more skeletons nearby, some more weathered than others, most preserved only by some coincidence of shelter. Two stood in a hidden niche, entwined in an eternal embrace, yet also curiously apart. Tenquis slid a hand among the frozen bones. “If they were posed like this,” he said, “why aren’t the two skeletons actually touching each other?”
“I’m not sure they were skeletons when they died,” said Ekhaas. She held her arm in a position similar to that of one skeleton, then took Tenquis’s arm and pressed it to hers, matching the other skeleton. “Imagine the gap between our bones,” she said, her mouth dry, “separated by the thickness of flesh.”
Tenquis jerked away from her. “Something turned their bones to stone?”
Geth considered the skeletons, his face grim. “It happened fast, then. I don’t think they had any warning.”
“Maybe they didn’t,” said Chetiin. The old goblin stood in a ruined doorway. “But you need to see this.”
Beyond the doorway, two sturdy walls preserved a section of corridor no more than ten paces long, both ends open. Two stone skeletons stood in the corridor. Unlike the other skeletons they’d seen, these were posed in attitudes of panic. One was precariously balanced in a sprinting position—fleeing from something, Ekhaas guessed. The other was on its back on the floor, twisted around, and staring back with empty eye sockets. The person it had been must have fallen and looked around to see his—or her—doom bearing down.
The skeletons were different in two other significant ways from the others they’d found. They were clad in the ragged remains of clothing—and they were human.
“You said the last time someone came looking for Suud Anshaar was about thirty years ago?” Ekhaas asked Tooth. The hunter nodded, his eyes fixed on the black and glittering skeletons.
“Those are Cyran clothes,” said Chetiin. “I think we’ve found the last people who came here.” He walked up to the skeletons, paused a short distance away, and pointed at a faint dark stain on the floor around them. “That’s what’s left when flesh rots and liquefies.”
“Do you think—” Ekhaas hesitated, words catching in her mouth before she forced them out. “Do you think whatever did this killed them? Or did they—?”
The words caught again, but this time Chetiin anticipated the question. “If I had to guess,” he said, “I think they might still have been alive after it happened.”
Ekhaas’s stomach rose. She had to clench her teeth and fight it down. Tenquis shuddered and clos
ed his golden eyes. Even Geth and Tooth looked a little bit green. Marrow whined and curled her tail low. Chetiin turned away from the skeletons—
—just as the wail broke over the ruins for a third time. Once again it was strangely sourceless, but in Ekhaas’s imagination it seemed closer than before.
“Tiger’s blood,” murmured Geth. “Whatever that is, I don’t think it’s a ghost.”
Tooth’s broad face had gone from green to pale. “It can’t be the same thing that killed Suud Anshaar, can it? Why wouldn’t your stories mention something like this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the empire suppressed what really happened before the story could circulate,” Ekhaas said.
“I would,” said Chetiin. He’d drawn both of his daggers, the one from his left arm sheath with the nasty curved blade and the one from his right arm sheath with the blue-black crystal that winked like an eye from its ugly straight blade. He looked at Ekhaas and Geth. “What do we do?”
Ekhaas exchanged a sharp glance with the shifter. His jaw tightened and he nodded. Ekhaas put her ears back. “We go on,” she said. “We keep looking for the shield fragments. We watch, and if whatever is making that noise shows itself, we try our best to kill it.”
“If it can be killed!” said Tooth. There was an edge of madness to his voice. “What if it can’t? How—”
Tenquis reached out and slapped him hard. “We’ll fight it,” he said harshly, “when we fight it.”
Tooth stared at him. Tenquis slid his wand into a pocket and calmly readied his crossbow. “You’re harder than you look,” said Tooth.
“I’m a tiefling,” said Tenquis, “and I want my revenge on Tariic. I’m as hard as I need to be.” He looked to Ekhaas. “How do we get to that hall?”
“This way, I think,” she said. She led the way out of the other door in the ruined corridor, trying hard not to look at the remains of the last expedition to come this way.
The Tyranny of Ghosts: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 3 Page 19