Eventually the officials ran out of reason to delay them, but there was one final indignity they could inflict. A squad of soldiers was summoned, and the delegation that had been cheered in Karrlakton was escorted under guard, packs on their shoulders and caged tigers on hand-drawn wagons, through the streets of Flamekeep to their destination at the lightning rail station.
Ekhaas’s ears quivered with fury as she marched. “Incredible,” she snarled at Ashi, walking beside her. “Once we ruled an empire that spanned this continent, and now we have to fight to be recognized as a nation by these… these…”
“Chaat’oor?” Ashi offered.
“Chaat’oor!” Ekhaas said.
To one side of the street, a stick-thin merchant raised her voice as if offering her opinions as much to the Darguuls as to the other Thranes around her. “Darguun? A nation of goblins? What filth! Flame forgive me, but you can’t civilize the uncivilized-Treaty of Thronehold be damned!”
A murmur of anger rose from the Darguuls who had heard and understood the comment. Ekhaas bared her teeth. “Uncivilized?” she said, her voice rising. “Maabet, the vaults of the Kech Volaar hold records and artifacts of a civilization that was old when your ancestors were splashing around in boats trying to get here!”
Ashi took Ekhaas’s arm, urging her onward. “You’re going to start a brawl. You know not every human thinks of goblins that way, Ekhaas.”
It was all Ekhaas could do not to shake her friend’s hand off. “Really? Did you ever wonder where that word or where the names you call our races come from? Before humans came to Khorvaire, we called ourselves dar-the people. Hobgoblins were ghaal’dar, the mighty people. Bugbears-what kind of name is that? — were guul’dar, the strong people. Goblins were golin’dar, the quick people.” Her ears bent down. “And they were the ones that humans met first. Your people mistook the name of our smallest race for the name of our entire people, and they didn’t even get that right. Now many of us use your names for our three races instead of our own. Even I do it!”
She gave a bitter little laugh. The rant and the admission left her feeling drained. Ashi patted her shoulder awkwardly. “You know,” she said as they turned a corner and the lightning rail station came into sight, “if I’m going to be in Darguun, I should learn to speak more of your language. Ghaal’dar, guul’dar, golin’dar… does ‘Darguun’ mean something in Goblin?”
“The land of the people.”
“Does Darguul mean the same thing as guul’dar then?”
Ekhaas laughed again, but this time with genuine humor, and stood straight. “No. It just means someone from Darguun.”
“Ah,” said Ashi.
The duur’kala smiled. “And do you remember back in the watch station, when you said shaat’aar instead of chaat’oor?”
Ashi nodded.
“A shaat’aar is a kind of sweet bun with honey cream in the middle. They’re different.”
Above her scarf, Ashi’s eyes lit up with a smile. “I’ll say.” She jerked her head back in the direction of the arrogant merchant. “I’ll bet she hasn’t had honey cream in her middle in a long time.”
Ekhaas’s laugh was so loud it brought the Thrane guards’ heads-and Tariic’s and Vounn’s-around. Ekhaas, still chuckling, just waved at them.
Fortunately, the members of House Orien who were the staff and crew of the lightning rail system found a customer’s money more important than their race. As soon as the soldiers of Thrane had delivered their charges, the station master saw to it that Tariic, Vounn, Ashi, and the other important members of the delegation were settled in the station’s private lounge while water and food were brought for the common soldiers. Tariic had rented three private lightning rail carts on the northward journey and left them at the station for the return trip. While these were brought back around to wait for the next coach running south, the station master apologized profusely for their rude treatment at the hands of the port officials, insisting that House Orien would lodge a complaint.
They were enjoying a lunch of spicy Thrane cuisine when the shriek of a whistle signaled the arrival of a lightning rail coach. Flamekeep was the terminus of the line; the coach would reverse direction for the journey back south. Not long after the scream of the whistle, the coach came into the station, sliding grandly past the windows of the lounge. The distinctive humped shape of the crew cart was first, fins along its side still cracking with the power of the bound elemental that drove the rail. Passenger carts with eager faces pressed to the window and sealed cargo carts followed, the whole gradually slowing until it came to a stop with a last crackling sigh of dissipating energy. Within moments, the station was filled with passengers disembarking and porters rushing to unload cargo.
The station master appeared again. “We’ll connect your carts as soon as the train is unloaded. The coach departs again at the seventh bell this evening, but you’ll be able to board your carts whenever you wish.”
There seemed to be a consensus among the delegation that they would prefer to wait several hours on board the cart rather than go back into the city. Ekhaas was certainly in agreement. Besides which, the carts-or at least the cart that Tariic had hired for himself and the other senior members of the delegation-were remarkably comfortable. When the time did finally come to board, she heard Ashi gasp as she climbed up into the cart.
“By Kol Korran’s golden bath, this is amazing!”
“Stop staring, Ashi,” said Vounn, pushing past. “You look like a peasant in a cathedral.”
Ashi didn’t stop staring, and Ekhaas couldn’t blame her. The interior of the cart was as luxurious as a fine House Ghallanda inn, with thick carpets, soft couches, and cabinets of books and good wine. “Didn’t you travel to Karrlakton on the lightning rail?” Ekhaas asked.
“Not like this,” said Ashi.
“We travel as representatives of Darguun,” Tariic said. “The lords of any other nation would travel in the same way. To accept less would only confirm everything people like that merchant say about us.”
Other passengers on the southbound coach appeared over the course of the afternoon, settling into the passenger carts or waiting in the terminal until the coach was ready to depart. Together with Ashi, Ekhaas wandered the platform, peering into the other coaches and resolutely ignoring the hostile glares that many of the Thrane passengers directed at her. The Darguul soldiers had been settled into the two other private carts hired by Tariic. They traveled in far more modest conditions than the senior members of the delegation, especially the cavalry riders who shared a cart with their tiger mounts and the delegation’s baggage. The great tigers dozed in their cages. Ashi studied them with a healthy respect, going right up to the bars before stepping back.
“I wouldn’t want to face one of those in the middle of a battle,” she said. She looked around. “There’s a lot of room still in this cart. Couldn’t Tariic have hired one less?”
“The tigers need space,” Ekhaas lied. “No one wants to sleep too near a cage.” So close and still not able to tell Ashi the truth! She gestured. “We should go back to our cart. It’s almost time for the coach to depart.”
Precisely at the seventh bell in the evening, the elemental bound to the crew cart snapped and crackled into activity. Leaning out the window of their cart, Ekhaas and Ashi saw the ring of lightning that was the manifestation of the elemental’s power spitting and hissing around the crew cart. A shudder ran through the entire coach. On the platform, the station agent blew a last piercing whistle to signal that all passengers were aboard. The crew answered with a shriek from the coach’s whistle. As smooth as milk poured from a pitcher, the carts of the coach began to move, sparks of lightning arcing between their undersides and the conductor stones laid out in a straight path below. They moved slowly at first, and the evening lights of Flamekeep crept by, but as the coach left the city behind, it gathered speed until they were fairly flying through the falling night.
They would take it, Ekhaas knew, all the way t
o Sterngate near the border of Breland and Zilargo, the homeland of the gnomes, before transferring to horses for the final journey to Rhukaan Draal-the lightning rail would carry them four times the distance of that final leg in only a quarter of the time.
But there would be, she knew as well, one interruption to their journey.
The first stop on the line south of Flamekeep was the city of Sigilstar, and when they arrived there in the middle of the next morning, Tariic summoned a station agent. “Have our carts disconnected from the coach,” he said. “We’ll stay overnight and take the morning coach tomorrow.”
The station agent nodded and left. Vounn-and most of the senior Darguuls-looked at Tariic with puzzled expressions. The lady seneschal of Deneith, however, gave voice to their curiosity. “Why the delay?”
“We’re waiting for someone,” Tariic said. His gaze took in all of them. “Stay close to the carts. Someone pass that order to soldiers, too. No one is to go wandering off.”
The Darguul carts were pulled out of the coach and towed by a small work cart off down a side line in the lightning rail yard. The day was hot, and the motionless carts rapidly grew warm in the sun. The distractions offered by the cart, well-stocked though it was, faded quickly and the members of the delegation were reduced to sitting around fanning themselves. Like the tigers in their cages, Ashi fell into a languid doze. Tariic and Vounn retreated to the private compartments that their rank afforded them. Ekhaas wished she could do the same, but the best she could manage was to sit in a sliver of the meager shade outside the cart and hope for a wind. Some of the Darguuls begged her for a tale from her store as a duur’kala to pass the time, and she put in a half-hearted effort. Inspired by the reliquary in her pack, she gave them a story of Duural Rhuvet and his battles against the nomadic halfling tribes that had harried the edges of the Dhakaani Empire as it faded into the lean centuries of the Desperate Times. Her enthusiasm grew in the telling of the tale, though, and when the story was over, she gave her audience another, then another, eating up the day. The soldiers lifted their ears to listen as well, and she told more tales, this time of the heroes of Dhakaan at its height-Kamvuul Norek, the slayer of illithids; Moorn Basha, who sang an island out of the sea; and Duulan Kuun, the first of the name Kuun and the hero who founded a line of heroes.
Night had fallen when she folded her hands and spoke the traditional words that finished the legends of Dhakaan, “Raat shan gath’kal dor.” The story stops but never ends.
Her audience of soldiers and councilors-the entire Darguul delegation, in fact-sat in silence for a moment longer, then rose in twos and threes and began to drift away, back to their places in the carts. Ekhaas let out her breath and allowed herself a smile. Enraptured silence was one of the greatest tributes a duur’kala could hope for.
“I can see why my uncle seeks an alliance with the Kech Volaar,” said a voice from above her. Ekhaas twisted around to find Tariic leaning out of the open window of his compartment. “That was stirring.”
Ekhaas’s ears flicked. “We both know your uncle wants more than tales from the Kech Volaar.”
“True, but I wouldn’t underestimate the power of a good story, either.” He nodded across the yard in which the carts had been left. Ekhaas turned and looked. In the direction he’d indicated stood three grubby goblins, wavering back and forth as if uncertain whether to approach. They weren’t Darguuls. Ekhaas guessed that they must have been inhabitants of Sigilstar, probably employed at the lightning rail station in some menial job. She glanced over her shoulder to say something more to Tariic, but he had already left the window. She looked back to the three goblins and beckoned to them.
They came forward like nervous supplicants. The boldest of them dropped down to his knees in front of her, gesturing for the other two, maybe his sons, to do the same. “Thank you,” he said to her. “It’s been a long time since I heard anything so exciting.” He spoke Goblin with a distinctly human accent. “We can’t pay you for what we heard, but we want you to have these.”
He held out a dirty cloth on which were piled three greasy bundles. Ekhaas’s nose twitched at the smell of food. The bundles were likely the goblins’ dinners. “You don’t have to do that,” she said. “I don’t need to be paid.”
The bold goblin looked at her, then at the bundles. He didn’t lower the cloth. “They say you should always pay what something’s worth. My Tunee, most people say she makes the best goblin food in Sigilstar. I think these might make a start at paying for your stories.”
“Won’t you be hungry tonight?”
“Your stories filled us up, chib,” said one of the other two, his big ears perking up.
Ekhaas smiled and took the bundles but returned the cloth. “I’ll remember your kindness,” she said.
The three goblins grinned as if one of the heroes from her stories had just come to life and thanked them. They stood up, dusted off their britches, and scampered back toward the lightning rail station, all the time grinning like fools. Ekhaas shook her head as she watched them go, then turned back to the cart.
Ashi crouched by the door, watching her. Ekhaas gave her a mock scowl and switched back to the human tongue. “I’m getting tired of people coming up behind me!”
“Sorry,” said Ashi. “I was just waiting for you to finish. Those must have been some stories. I wish I could have followed them all.”
“We need to start on your Goblin lessons then. Why don’t we begin with food?” Ekhaas passed one of the greasy bundles to her.
They climbed up onto the roof of the cart, the better to catch the evening breeze. Four moons had risen above the horizon, casting enough light for Ashi to see what she was eating. Ekhaas, of course, could see the contents of the bundles with no difficulty, and as they were unwrapped, she taught Ashi the names for the food within and for the words associated with eating. The goblin had been right: His wife did make good food. The bundles contained chewy sausages pickled with bitter herbs, big steamed dumplings of starchy noon mash, eggs boiled in broth, and-to Ekhaas’s surprise and Ashi’s delight-tiny but sweet shaat’aar. They ate them all, sharing the third bundle between them, then sat and watched as a fifth moon, pale yellow Nymm, rose low in the southeast and began to climb up against the bright haze of the Ring of Siberys.
“The thing that you can’t tell me about,” Ashi said into the silence. “It’s happening tonight, isn’t it? That’s why we’ve stopped here.”
“It’s supposed to happen tonight. We hope it happens tonight.”
“And you still can’t tell me anything more?”
Ekhaas shook her head. “No, not yet. But soon, I promise.”
Out by the wall that surrounded the lightning rail yard, something moved. It was too far away for even Ekhaas to see clearly, but there was, for an instant, a brief eclipsing of the lights from the city over the top of the wall. Just a flicker. It might have been nothing at all. Ekhaas’s breath caught in her throat, though, and she paused, watching.
“Ekhaas?” asked Ashi softly. She was alert and tense, staring after Ekhaas into the darkness. Her hand was on her sword. “Is something wrong?”
The flicker came again-and kept coming. One after another, dark bodies swarmed over the wall, caught briefly by the dim light before dropping again into shadow. Ashi whispered a curse and started to rise. Ekhaas grabbed her arm and held her down.
“Don’t move,” she said.
Ashi froze and sank back down into a crouch. Ekhaas crept to the edge of the cart and peered into the yard. Everything was as motionless and quiet as before, the silence broken by murmurs from the soldiers as they played some game and by crews laboring around the station. Beyond about twenty paces, she could see nothing more than Ashi, but the colorless nightvision of her people cut through the closer shadows. She watched and waited for the first hint of movement. The moment stretched out…
Then they were there, not just at the edge of her vision, but slipping out from behind another stationary lightning rail cart p
arked in the yard, so close that even Ashi could see them. Ekhaas heard her draw a sharp breath. She came close to gasping as well, and she had been expecting this.
A dozen black-clad goblins flowed through the moonlight like rats or ferrets.
“Who are they?” Ashi whispered.
“Shaarat’khesh and taarka’khesh,” said Ekhaas. “Goblins of the Silent Clans.”
“The assassins?”
“When they need to be.”
Sentries posted outside the delegation’s carts looked studiously away. The goblins went to the third cart, the one that carried the tigers and that, as Ashi had observed, seemed so empty. One of them tapped a soft rhythm on the cargo door. A moment later, the door slid open and the goblins of the Silent Clans vanished into the cart. The door closed and they might never have been there at all, except for one goblin who remained outside-and looked up at Ekhaas and Ashi with glittering eyes in a dark stained face. They’d been seen. The goblin pointed at Ashi, his eyebrows and ears lifting in an unspoken question. Ekhaas nodded. The goblin turned back to the cart from behind which he and the others had emerged. He beckoned.
Another figure stepped into the moonlight, a shifter with a pack over one shoulder and the heavy shape of a hobgoblin sword at his side. Ashi started. “Geth?” she said, then “Geth!”
Before Ekhaas could say anything or even move, Ashi was on her feet and clambering down to the ground. Below, Geth stared, then ran to meet her. Ekhaas closed her eyes for a moment and let out a sigh of relief before climbing down the ladder as well. Inside the cart, the rest of the delegation was stirring in curiosity at the commotion outside. Ekhaas heard Tariic telling them to be calm and to remain in the cart.
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