our sweetest offerings soothe your hunger! Devourer, pass us by!
“They’re on the wide street ahead,” said Aruget. “We’ll be past them in just-”
His words cut off. Vounn raised her eyes and looked ahead. The street they ran along was blocked on its other side. Carts had been drawn across it and figures stood across the makeshift barricade, watching in the direction of Khaar Mbar’ost. There was no easy way across.
Aruget bared his teeth. “They’re trying to block Haruuc’s soldiers from interfering,” he said. “We need to go around them.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her around the corner onto the wide street-and into the path of the famine march.
For an instant, Vounn had a glimpse of the marchers, a mob that filled the street from side to side. Some among them carried torches, and the leaping flames cast color onto the moonlight-washed crowd. Most of the marchers were hobgoblins, but there were goblins and bugbears, kobolds and crazed humans as well. At the head of the mob was a bugbear. Riding like a child on his shoulders was a wizened old goblin woman. Above her head, she held a cluster of bloody bones with their ends sharpened to points-the symbol of the Devourer, the most primal god of the Dark Six. Hers was the shrill voice Vounn had heard earlier, and it rose again.
“Feed the Devourer! Feed his unending hunger, and we may survive!”
Then the glimpse was gone as Aruget dragged her on down the street, fleeing before the mob. The way ahead of them was completely empty, all doors closed, all windows shuttered. Vounn waited for the mob to spot them and rush forward, howling for blood, but they didn’t. They just came on at the same constant, unstoppable pace, and Vounn wished that she had House Orien’s abilities to step across vast distances in the blink of an eye.
“Here!” Aruget hurled the torch away and turned to one side so sharply that he wrenched her arm. Pain shot through her shoulder, but she followed his guidance and stumbled into the mouth of an alley. Stinking garbage made the footing unsteady, but the alley was narrow and she could brace herself against the walls. Aruget followed her in, pressing her back and hiding her with his body.
“We’ll wait until they pass, then go back,” he whispered. “They’ll be heading for the Bloody Market.”
“Why?”
“They’ll make their sacrifice there-or try to. They may try to wreck the market too. If Haruuc is smart, he’ll have soldiers assembled to meet them before they can do any damage.” His ears flicked. “Hush!”
The noise of the famine march was a vibration in the air and the ground. The footfalls and chants of the mob, intertwined with the shrieks of the old goblin woman, came closer, then abruptly the march was on them. Moonlight flickered on the face of the old goblin, and Vounn saw that her eyes were filmed and pale. She must have been blind. There were dark stains running down her arms, and Vounn wondered if the blood that slicked the symbol of the Devourer was her own.
Then she was gone, and the marchers, their faces smeared with ash, were streaming past. There were children among them, looking around in confusion. A hobgoblin boy stared down the alley and his eyes met Vounn’s. She glanced away and when she looked back, the boy was gone.
Almost all of the marchers carried baskets heaped with food. Aruget drew back his lips in a silent snarl and put his mouth close to her ear. “Dark Six cultists hold famine marches in times of shortage. They try to avoid a full- scale famine by sacrificing the best of their food to the Devourer in hopes that he’ll leave them what scraps remain. All they do is make things worse for themselves.”
Vounn felt sick at the waste-and even more sick as the ranks of the marchers thinned briefly to reveal a dozen ragged figures, bound to one another by ropes, being forced along the street. Slaves. She pressed her lips together. Aruget nodded, confirming her unspoken fears. “The Devourer hungers for meat of all kinds,” he said.
“Are the shortages that bad already?”
“They don’t have to be. The life of a common slave is cheap.” He looked out of the alley again as the last of the bound figures passed from view. “If there truly were famine, there would be no slaves left to sacrifice.”
The mass of the mob had passed, the rumble of their chant fading with them. There were only stragglers on the street now, and soon they were gone as well. Aruget eased his head out of the alley, looked up and down, then took Vounn’s hand to pull her after him. She would have gone with him gladly except for the familiar voice that drifted down into the alley from above.
“They make us look like ignorant savages,” said Tariic.
Vounn stopped and looked up. High up on one of the walls of the alley was the dark shape of an open window. Another voice came down, “You don’t honor the Dark Six?”
Daavn of Marhaan. Vounn had thought the warlord had left Rhukaan Draal to return to his clan’s territories. She tugged Aruget back into the alley and pointed up at the window. There was no need-his face was already turned up, his ears already high.
“I honor them in their place,” said Tariic. “A famine march is the kind of stupidity that makes the other nations of Khorvaire look on our people as brutes.”
“You sound like your uncle, trying to appease the humans as a famine march tries to appease the Devourer. Do you intend to leave Darguun eating stale noon and chewing dry bones?”
“Peace and war, like the Dark Six, have their place.” There was a pause and Vounn imagined Tariic sipping wine. “My uncle favors me. He trusts me with the most sensitive of missions. I am the most obvious of heirs-a warrior of his blood, trained as a bridge between Darguun and the Five Nations. He believes I share his vision for our people.”
“I believe you share his vision,” Daavn said.
“I believe that now is the time to honor peace,” Tariic answered. “I came to assure you that war will have its time as well. Bide your time, Daavn. When I receive what is due to me, I want the Marhaan to stand with the Rhukaan Taash in support of me.”
He received a grumble as an answer.
Tariic’s voice took on a sharper edge. “Do I have the friendship of the Marhaan, Daavn?”
“You’re not Haruuc’s heir yet, Tariic. I don’t gamble on coins beneath a bowl when the bowl may never be lifted.” Daavn seemed to hesitate, then said, “Give me a sign. You want the Marhaan to stand with you. Tell me something I want to know.”
There was another pause, longer this time. Vounn doubted if wine was being sipped. “What?” Tariic said finally.
“I have heard that Dagii of the Mur Talaan has ridden to the southwest, along with a number of those you brought to Khaar Mbar’ost with the Deneith envoy. One of the sharaat’khesh, a duur’kala of the Kech Volaar, a gnome, a shifter, and a human bearing a Siberys dragonmark. A strange group of people. My instincts tell me that something is going on. What are they doing?”
“Why do you want to know?” asked Tariic. “The southwest is a long way from Marhaan territory.”
“I ask as a warlord of Darguun-and as someone you want as your friend. Does such a group ride our nation on their own accord?”
Tariic paused again, then said, “They ride at Lhesh Haruuc’s command.”
“But you know why he sent them out? Does it have something to do with House Deneith?”
“I’m saying nothing more.”
“When do they return?”
Tariic laughed at that question. “I can’t tell you what no one knows, Daavn. Not even Haruuc is certain when they’ll come back. Now you tell me-will the Marhaan stand with me? I want an answer.”
Daavn answered with sincerity. “You have given me the sign I asked for. When you are heir, Tariic of Rhukaan Taash, the Marhaan will stand with you. By the honor of my clan, I swear it.”
There was the sound of metal touching metal. Vounn guessed that the two men had crossed their knives, the goblin tradition for sealing an oath. “I must go,” said Tariic. “The famine march will have stirred things up. I’d counted on my uncle not noticing my absence tonight from Khaar Mbar’ost, but he’ll probably be looking for me.”
“Tell him you were caught in the city by the march,” Daavn suggested. “It’s the truth.”
“It is at that. Swift travel back to your territory, my friend.”
“Great glory, Tariic.”
