doomed to fail until reinforcements arrived-taarka’khesh, goblin wolf riders rallied by Chetiin and his own wolflike worg mount, Marrow. Devastated, the Valenar fled the field. Victory belonged to Dagii, who used the opportunity to proclaim his love for Ekhaas. In the midst of the battle, however, Ekhaas had received a magical warning from Senen of Ashi’s arrest. Ekhaas and Chetiin hurried to Rhukaan Draal followed by Dagii and the survivors of the great battle, the victory march serving as a distraction from Ekhaas and Chetiin’s return.
Ashi, to her own surprise, was left unharmed following her imprisonment. A daring attack by Midian freed her, but the gnome confessed that after being captured by Makka, he’d given her up for his own life and freedom. Worse, he’d also betrayed Geth and Tenquis, having uncovered Tenquis’s identity and guessing that Geth had taken refuge with the artificer. The shifter and the tiefling were also Tariic’s prisoners.
Encountering Ekhaas on her way to rescue Ashi, they descended deeper into the dungeon and discovered that Geth and Tenquis had been tortured by Tariic in the belief that Geth had stolen the Rod of Kings. Geth hadn’t, but before their capture he and Tenquis had devised a way to track the rod and had found its location-Chetiin had somehow hidden the stolen rod in Haruuc’s sealed tomb! Although Geth had resisted torture, Tenquis had not. The lhesh’s allies were already on their way to the tomb.
Chetiin’s appearance drove Geth into a rage, but the mystery of the goblin’s apparent treachery was solved as Aruget arrived (also with the intent of rescuing the prisoners). Just as Aruget was an agent of Breland, Midian was an agent of the gnome nation of Zilargo, and the gnomes were manipulating events for their own benefit. Midian had assassinated Haruuc in disguise as Chetiin, when it appeared Haruuc would become a tyrant, not realizing the rod’s curse was to blame. He’d donned the disguise again to steal the rod and discredit Chetiin after discovering the goblin had survived his initial attack.
The need to retrieve the rod before Tariic could was more important than Midian’s guilt or innocence, however. Slipping out of Khaar Mbar’ost, the heroes hurried to Haruuc’s tomb, where they discovered Makka and Pradoor overseeing bugbear workers attempting to break through the tomb’s massive door. Midian had previously slipped into the tomb through a natural shaft in the rock, but no one trusted him enough to allow him to go back in on his own. Ekhaas, Ashi, and Aruget distracted Makka and the workers, while Tenquis used artificer magic to open the tomb so that Geth, Chetiin, and Midian could enter and retrieve the rod.
But Midian escaped and ran for his own secret entrance to the tomb, betraying them all yet again. Geth, Chetiin, and Tenquis opened the door and beat Midian into the tomb but were unable to retrieve the rod before he began sniping at them with a crossbow retrieved from a hidden cache. Chetiin sneaked up to Midian, and while the goblin and the gnome struggled, Geth retrieved the rod. As he climbed out of the tomb, he was ambushed by Makka, who had returned. Seizing the rod from Geth, Makka and Pradoor rode back to Khaar Mbar’ost and Tariic.
Geth came up with a desperate plan-another assassination. Forced to spare Midian in spite of his continued treachery, they returned to Khaar Mbar’ost and found Tariic, rod already in hand, waiting alongside the warlords of his court to greet Dagii as he marched into the city. Geth and the others worked their way through the gathered crowd until Midian could strike Tariic with a poisoned crossbow bolt, killing him. As the crowd scattered, Geth, Chetiin, and Ashi leaped onto the platform to retrieve the fallen rod-only to find that Tariic had outwitted them. In death, the lhesh’s body transformed into that of Ko, the changeling. The rod they had risked themselves to retrieve was the false one. Tariic, the true rod in his grasp, appeared and ordered the assembled Darguuls to seize the traitors.
The heroes found themselves surrounded by Darguul warlords and commoners caught up in the irresistible power of the Rod of Kings. Aruget and Midian disappeared into the crowd. Ekhaas, confronted by Dagii, briefly believed herself rescued, only to realize that Dagii had also succumbed to the rod’s power. Tenquis, left beyond the crowd, rode to their rescue, parting the mob with horses for the heroes to ride to freedom.
Or almost all the heroes. Makka-his vengeance long delayed-found himself with a chance to kill a momentarily defenseless Ashi. He attacked, but his killing blow was intercepted by Vounn d’Deneith, who attempted to turn the blade with the power of her own weak dragonmark. She failed, and Makka’s thrust impaled Vounn and Ashi together.
Stunned at their friends’ deaths, there was nothing the others could do but flee as Tariic ordered Dagii to ride them down. Away from the crowd, Ekhaas turned to confront her beloved and allow the others a chance to flee, but found herself unexpectedly aided by Senen. Distracting Dagii with a spell of confusion, Senen told Ekhaas to guide the others to refuge with the Kech Volaar and to warn their clan against the dangers of an alliance with Tariic. The heroes fled, vowing to stop Tariic’s mad ambition but unaware of what they had left behind…
CHAPTER ONE
5 Aryth, 999 YK (late autumn)
The Darguul patrol-two bugbears and six hobgoblins-crept among the trees in near silence. Their armor had been padded to dampen the rattle of plates and mail. Their scabbards had been bound close. They had left their horses behind and placed their feet with care, avoiding sticks and dry leaves and the tufts of crackling, frost-stiff grass left by winter’s first breath on the foothills of the Seawall Mountains. They carried no light source and didn’t need one-goblin eyes saw as well by night as by day.
In the small camp ahead, four blanket-wrapped forms lay around the dim coals of a fire. The loudest sound in the night was the gentle snoring that came from one of those forms.
The patrol’s leader, a hobgoblin with the ceremonial scars of the Rhukaan Taash clan across his forehead, raised a hand, and the patrol halted beside a thick fir tree. The leader studied the camp ahead, then gestured. As the patrol resumed its stealthy approach, two pairs of soldiers split off to come at the camp from south and north.
Hidden among the thick boughs of the fir, Geth saw the patrol leader’s ears stand tall and his sharp teeth flash in a grin. The shifter knew what he was thinking: there would be honor and glory in Khaar Mbar’ost for the hero who brought back the heads of the would-be assassins of Lhesh Tariic Kurar’taarn.
Geth could have told the hobgoblin that honor and glory weren’t always the rewards of heroes. For the two days since they’d fled the city of Rhukaan Draal, rage and anguish had festered in him. Anguish for the murders of Ashi and Vounn. Rage at Makka for having killed them. Rage at Tariic and at Pradoor. Rage at Midian Mit Davandi for betraying them yet again. Rage at Aruget-or whatever the changeling Dark Lantern of Breland chose to call himself-for abandoning them.
Rage at himself for thinking he could try to save Haruuc’s dream of Darguun as a homeland for the dar, the three related races of hobgoblins, goblins, and bugbears. The disaster in Rhukaan Draal was his making.
As the last hobgoblin passed, he tightened his grip on his sword, tensed his muscles-and exploded out of hiding, his roar shattering the silence.
Already on edge, the patrol whirled, and Geth buried Wrath deep in the gut of the first of Tariic’s soldiers. The hobgoblin’s falling body trapped the sword for a moment. Geth whipped his right arm up to catch on the armored sleeve of his great gauntlet the swift blow of a second soldier. The soldier’s blade skittered across black, magewrought steel, then Geth had Wrath free. With a grunt, he sliced at the soldier’s legs. The hobgoblin hopped back just in time.
At the fire, Ekhaas and Tenquis rose from their position as decoys. Out of the corner of his eye, Geth saw Chetiin, wrinkled face stained dark for stealth in the night, drop from the shadowed branches of a tree onto a bugbear. The goblin’s arm went around the soldier’s head, the unexpected weight dragging it back and exposing his throat. A dagger flashed-the ordinary dagger Chetiin sheathed on his left forearm, not the soul-stealing weapon that he kept on his right and that Midian had used to kill Haruuc-and the bugbear groped at the gaping, bubbling wound that opened across his neck. Chetiin kicked away as the sword of another soldier skimmed past him to plunge into the back of his already dying comrade. The dagger flashed again and the second soldier fell with a shriek, clutching at a crippled leg.
Geth didn’t see the killing blow that ended the shriek. Two of his opponents came at him together and he whirled aside. He blocked one sword with his gauntlet, turned Wrath in his grip, and caught the second in the jagged teeth that formed the back of the ancient blade. A twist of his wrist locked the weapons together. Geth kicked underneath them, driving a foot hard into the belly of the soldier and sending him reeling away. The other
