Hobgoblins were broader and more powerful than humans, but bugbears, largest of the goblin races, were broader, taller, and more powerful still, standing shoulders and shaggy head above most hobgoblins. Arming his bugbears with battering rams fashioned from logs and beams, Haruuc had broken right through the walls of the town’s houses to make his own streets. The bugbears’ big ears-stiffer and less expressive than a hobgoblin’s-had quivered at the simple joy of wanton destruction.
The closer Haruuc’s troops got to the center of the town, though, the fiercer the resistance had become. Anyone among the townspeople who could hold a weapon had fought, with just enough experienced fighters and battle-trained mages among them to inflict some damage. When the attackers finally reached the town square, they found townspeople and refugees crowded into ranks, and the fighting had begun in earnest.
What puzzled Haruuc was why they were fighting instead of fleeing. Masses of them could have escaped-the Ghaal River protected the north side of the town from direct attack, but it hardly prevented flight. Then for a moment the battle parted before him and he saw the reason.
The human who strode across the far side of the battlefield, here and there plunging his sword into the fighting, must have been the lord of the town. His shield was painted with an elaborate crest, and the armor that he wore was good. What captured Haruuc’s attention, however, was his helmet. It looked old, but the plume of feathers that crowned it rippled and shone like fire. Wherever the lord went, swinging his sword alongside his people and urging them to fight harder, the efforts of the defenders seemed renewed.
The tide of battle closed the gap, but Haruuc had seen enough. “Vanii, open the way to that man!” he ordered.
“Mazo!” His third shava, Vanii of the Ja’aram, surged ahead, his twin axes whirling like a storm. Fighters fell back from them or died. The lord of the town turned to find Haruuc before him. He tried to get his sword up but failed. With a roar that stopped the fighting around them, Haruuc raised his blade and cut down. His sword slammed through plumes, metal, hair, bone, and brains. He ripped it free as the corpse fell, then bent and severed the corpse’s neck.
Hoisting the head by the fading plumes of the ruined helmet, still tied under the chin by a cord, he raised it in one hand and his bloody sword in the other. “Your lord is dead!” he howled in the human language. “The battle is done! By my sword, I claim this place and name it Rhukaan Draal, the crown city of Darguun, the land of the people!”
All of the energy seemed to fade from the defenders closest to them. Defeat pulled on their faces and dragged down their weapons. A few fought on in pockets, but they died quickly. A great cheer washed over the town as goblin, hobgoblin, and bugbear troops rushed to secure the spoils of war.
Haruuc let his grisly trophy drop. The impact finally dislodged head from helmet and the split and startled face of the last human lord of the town rolled into the yellow dust. Vanii poked at the shattered helmet. “Powerful magic,” he grunted. “Too bad it’s broken-it would have been a fine thing to keep.”
“There was no great magic in it,” Fenic said. “My people knew the lords of this place for generations. The only magic was in the feathers. The helmet was a show piece, passed from lord to lord as a symbol of the right to rule. It connected the lord who wore it to all of the lords who came before. The town didn’t stand by the man. It stood by its history.”
Haruuc laughed. “Ban,” he said. “But beginning now, the history of this place and this land”-he brought his boot down on the helmet, crushing the last of the plumes and cracking the metal-“is what we make it!”
Haruuc opened his eyes to sunlight on the roofs of Rhukaan Draal thirty years from the memory of that triumphant day. The yellow dust of the city rose in a drifting haze, thicker over the bustle of the Bloody Market. From the window where he stood, Haruuc could hear the sounds of combat that rose with it, different from the normal sounds of the late-morning market. The clash of steel on steel, the screams of defiance, the shouts of command, the wails of the fatally injured. Violence in the market wasn’t uncommon, but no merchant ever defended his stall with such vigor or mourned the loss of his goods with such deep agony.
A party from the Gan’duur clan, outspoken opponents to his rule, had entered the city the day before to trade in the market, or so they had claimed. The Gan’duur weren’t a subtle clan. Presented with a spear, they’d throw themselves onto it. And from the signs of the fight in the Bloody Market, they’d found the spears Haruuc had sent to them in the hands of his own disguised warriors. The corpses of the Gan’duur would be left where they fell, victims of the market violence. Haruuc had crafted the strategy with care. By tradition, the corpses of the Gan’duur should be hung in gibbets before the gates of his fortress, a warning to anyone who might consider crossing him. Public display, however, would show his involvement in the deaths and enflame the remaining Gan’duur. Worse, it would be proof to the other clans of the growing unrest, another hint that Haruuc’s grasp on power was slipping. Left in the street, the corpses would be as anonymous as their killers. The chief and elders of the Gan’duur would surely guess what had happened, but there would be no proof of Haruuc’s hand in the matter. The doubts of the chiefs and lesser warlords would be staved off-until the next time the Gan’duur rose.
The Gan’duur or some other ambitious clan scratching for fleeting power. Fenic, he thought, I should have listened more closely to you. He looked down at the hands that gripped the windowsill-deep yellow skin slowly growing thin and increasingly stained with dark spots.
There were voices beyond the door, and Haruuc turned away from the window. A moment later, the door opened and Tariic entered. “We depart, uncle.”
It came to Haruuc that Haluun had always insisted that Tariic had been conceived the very day that they had captured that Cyran frontier town. He had never believed in omens that he didn’t make himself, but if he had, surely that was a good one. His ears rose. “Swift travel and great glory,” he said in blessing. “Bring back our history, Tariic.”
CHAPTER ONE
15 Lharvion, 999 YK (midsummer) A shout of rage was the only warning Geth had before a fist that smelled of onions and dirt smashed into the side of his face. Caught by surprise-his own fists were already twisted in the loose fabric of another man’s shirt-Geth rolled with the blow. Pain spread across his cheek, but it was dull and distant. The odor that trailed the punch was stronger. A growl tore out of Geth’s throat. He pitched away the man who lolled in his grasp and bared his teeth at the farmer who had hit him.
The sight of a shifter’s mouthful of sharp teeth didn’t even give the man pause. He lunged at Geth, wrapping thick arms around him and bearing him backward off his feet. The smell of onions and dirt, topped off with ale, surrounded Geth as they both stumbled backward. The hard edge of a table bit into Geth’s lower back. That hurt. Geth ground his teeth together and slammed his forehead into the other man’s face. There was another burst of pain, but the farmer’s grasp weakened. Geth butted him again. The man let go and staggered back, cursing. Geth shoved himself away from the table and twisted to drive his knee up into the man’s gut. Breath whooshed out of him. Geth grabbed his shoulder and brought up his knee a second time for good measure. The farmer went down, and Geth whirled, fists raised, looking for the next attacker.
There wasn’t one. The man he had tossed aside was hobbling away, supporting a friend whose smashed nose bore the imprint of Geth’s knuckles. The other patrons of the tavern had pulled back from the fight and stood in an uneasy circle around Geth, each of them looking nervously at the others, none of them willing to make the first move.
“Get out,” said a voice behind Geth. He turned around. The tavernkeeper stood at his bar, one hand below the top of its well-scrubbed surface. The bend of an arm tattooed with the dragonhawk crest of Aundair hinted that his hidden hand grasped a club or a knife-maybe even a wand. The thick hair that covered Geth’s forearms and the back of his neck bristled and lifted slightly. The nation of Aundair had more than its share of mage-trained veterans of the Last War.
Keeping an eye on the tavernkeeper’s hidden hand, Geth stood straight and opened his fists. “Easy there,” he said. “I was defending myself. They started this. Did you hear what they said to me? Boar’s snout, they accused me of stealing sheep and raiding vineyards!”
The tavernkeeper’s face was hard. “I’d believe them before I believe you. They come from Lathleer. They belong here. Where do you belong, shifter? We’ve seen enough of your kind since the end of the war. Just another war-torn wanderer. Get out of my tavern and get out of Lathleer!”
