people of Darguun would reclaim the heritage of Dhakaan. On their return to Khaar Mbar’ost, Geth, Munta, Tariic, and Chetiin all confronted the lhesh about what amounted to a threat of war. Haruuc forced Tariic and Munta to yield to his authority, but Chetiin would not yield and spoke harshly of the danger of acting rashly-for which advice Haruuc exiled him. Chetiin departed but warned that Haruuc would destroy everything he had built unless he was stopped.
When he and Geth were alone, Haruuc offered his shava the chance to leave his service if he would perform the final act of standing with Haruuc to honor Vanii. Geth agreed, but he was dismayed to discover that Haruuc had found and erected an ancient Dhakaani grieving tree, a magical stone construction upon the thorny branches of which its victims suffered an agonizing death. This was the punishment Haruuc had for Keraal. In shock, Geth confronted Haruuc. Haruuc admitted that he did not like what he was doing, but nonetheless did what a king must.
Geth realized that just as the Sword of Heroes sometimes showed him visions of how a hero should act, the Rod of Kings showed Haruuc visions of how a king-an emperor-should act. What was for Geth a gift, however, was a curse for Haruuc. The visions, memories carried by the rod of an ancient time when Dhakaan’s power was unlimited, were driving the lhesh to become a tyrant. He begged Geth for help to save his nation once more.
Geth guessed that Ashi’s dragonmark might be able to shield Haruuc. Leaving Haruuc to face the honoring of Vanii and the punishment of Keraal alone, Geth ran in search of Ashi. He found her in her quarters, preparing to leave Darguun under Vounn’s orders. She accompanied Geth at his urging. As they made their way back to the throne room, Geth’s explanation of the situation was overheard by Aruget. Assuring Geth that he could keep a secret, the guard guided them to a side entrance to the throne room.
They arrived to hear the assembly of warlords calling on Haruuc to lead them in war-and to see Haruuc almost give in to them and to the curse of the rod, before cannily suggesting the elves of Valenar as a target. Geth understood that by starting a small war with the elves, ancient enemies of Dhakaan and, like Darguun, mistrusted by other nations of Khorvaire, Haruuc was preventing a larger war that would surely have destroyed his nation. Once Ashi used the power of her dragonmark to shield him from the rod’s curse, even that small war might still be averted.
As Haruuc raised his arms in triumph, however, a crossbow bolt from a balcony struck him. Geth and Dagii ran to his aid, but the bolt was poisoned and the assassin was already descending from the balcony. It was Chetiin. Avoiding Geth and Dagii’s attempts to defend the wounded lhesh, the traitor killed Haruuc with a dagger thrust through his eye, then made his escape.
As the throne room erupted into chaos, Geth saw two things. First, that Chetiin had believed Haruuc had discovered the rod’s power of command when in fact all the power Haruuc had ever needed had been his own charisma. And second, that the rod remained a danger and that whoever sought to succeed Haruuc would surely fall to its curse as well. Acting to buy what time he could and knowing he was protected by the magic of his sword, Geth seized the rod and proclaimed that, until an heir could be determined, it was his sacred duty as Haruuc’s shava to hold the throne of Darguun.
CHAPTER ONE
19 Sypheros, 999 YK (mid-autumn)
Noise battered Geth loud enough that he could feel it in his belly. It swelled out from pipes fashioned from brass stems and inflated bags of leopard skin; from the rhythm of big drums beaten with short, thick rods; from the voices of hundreds-thousands-of goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears as they crammed the streets of Rhukaan Draal and shouted a final farewell to Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor.
The corpse of the assassinated lhesh sat in a throne carried on the shoulders of six strong bugbears. Haruuc had been dressed in a suit of heavy armor decorated with the claws and fangs of great cats, his hands curled around the hilt of the famous red sword that had carved out Darguun’s destiny. Protective magic had held off decay for the ten day period of mourning. When Geth had knelt before the throne in the last ritual submission demanded by goblin tradition, it had seemed to him that the lhesh might have been resting except for the ruin of the eye socket through which Chetiin’s dagger had plunged. Goblin tradition put the fatal wound on display for all to see, though Geth knew that the greatest wound was invisible. The dagger, straight and ugly with a blue-black crystal winking from its blade like the eye of a great cat, was called Witness. When it killed, it consumed its victim’s soul. Powerful magics could return life to the dead, but Chetiin had made certain that Haruuc was beyond even their power.
For ten days, no fires had burned in Rhukaan Draal. For ten days, the streets had been empty between dawn and dusk, and even between dusk and dawn, they had been quiet. The infamous Bloody Market was virtually deserted, most of its stalls shuttered. For ten days, no one had entered or left the city without permission from the fortress of Khaar Mbar’ost-no easy command to enforce, but the guards who patrolled Rhukaan Draal’s ragged fringes and stood watch at the barricades that sealed its entrances were not above using fists and clubs to keep order. Wagons carrying food for a city still recovering from the raids of the rebellious Gan’duur clan were permitted to enter, but they did not leave.
Ten days without fire, ten days of silence, ten days of isolation. By goblin tradition, a warlord was mourned within his clanhold for five days, but Haruuc Shaarat’kor had been more than just a warlord.
The morning of the eleventh day had come. Soon the people would be released to the spectacle of games commemorating the dead lhesh. But first, Haruuc’s tomb waited for him. The mingled sound of pipes, drums, and goblin voices was discordant and terrifying, halfway between a lament and a call to battle, a primal roar to accompany a king to his grave.
Or, Geth thought as he marched behind the moving throne, to sound the doom of a shifter who was in over his head.
His hands, already clenched around the Rod of Kings, tightened even more. The rune-carved byeshk shaft seemed colder and heavier that it had any right to be. He glanced at it and thought for the hundredth time in the last ten days, This is your fault.
If the rod made any response, he couldn’t hear it. At his side, Wrath, the Sword of Heroes fashioned by the same ancient hands from the same vein of byeshk as the rod, murmured its own subtle song of inspiration. Not so long ago, he’d only been vaguely aware of the sword’s influence as it urged him toward the deeds of a hero. Now, knowing where the rod had led Haruuc, the sword’s very weight was an uncomfortable reminder of its influence. Would it someday guide him to his doom as the rod had guided Haruuc to his?
A crooked smile pulled on Geth’s lips, baring sharp teeth. Maybe it already had. For ten days, a shifter mercenary had been the ruler-in name if not in practice-of a goblin kingdom. Why? Because it was the heroic thing to do?
On Geth’s right, Tariic, who had been Haruuc’s nephew, leaned close and spoke over the noise of the crowd. “You look uneasy.”
Geth forced the smile away, but he couldn’t completely hide how he felt. “I feel uneasy,” he growled back.
“I could help you,” Tariic said. “With the ceremony. You don’t have to do it all yourself.” His eyes darted to the rod and his ears flicked. “It would be within my right-”
There was sudden movement at the edge of Geth’s vision, and he turned his head to see another hobgoblin, his broad shoulders made even broader by two thick leopard pelts worn as a mantle, his cheeks marked with ritual scars like clawmarks, pushing out of the packed mass of warlords who followed close behind the throne. Other warlords looked at him, but his eyes were on Tariic, and he had the look of a zealous magistrate watching for the slightest violation of the law. Geth shifted his grip on the rod and dropped one hand to Wrath’s hilt. He might mistrust the sword’s guidance, but while it was in his grasp it allowed him to understand the harsh sounds of the Goblin language as if he’d been born to it. The warlord’s words became clear in his ears.
“Have care if you seek to advance your status, Tariic. Haruuc is not yet in his tomb!”
He spoke louder than he needed to. Even against the noise of the crowd, his voice carried to the warlords nearby. Geth knew him: Aguus, warlord of the Traakuum clan, and like Tariic, one of those in contention to take Haruuc’s place as lhesh. The other claimants were close, too. Garaad of Vaniish Kai, lean as a spear and just as
