waved it for his surviving warriors to see, and proclaimed the battle a victory. Raat shan gath’kal dor-the story stops but never ends.”
Tooth sat back, his breathing as quick as if he’d just fought the battle himself. His open hand slapped his chest in appreciation. “Paatcha, Ekhaas! Now that’s a story-and your Dagii sounds more worthy of respect than Tariic could ever be. I’d like to meet him.”
Ekhaas leaned back as well. Her blood sang with the euphoria of a story well told, and her heart ached-in a pleasant way-for Dagii’s absence. “If we’re successful in Suud Anshaar, maybe you will some day,” she said.
Tooth’s eyes flashed in the firelight. “I haven’t asked why you’re going there,” he said after a moment. “You hired me to get you there, not to take you inside, so I’ve held my tongue. But I’m curious. The stories say that the ruins have been untouched since before the fall of Dhakaan and that they hide a fabulous treasure. Emeralds as big as a goblin’s fist. Pearls as big as mine. Gold coins the size of dinner plates-”
“Nothing like that,” said Ekhaas. “I think the hunters of the Khraal have been making stories up. I suppose there could be a treasure in Suud Anshaar, but I haven’t heard of one. What we’re looking for is different, the remains of something that was broken long ago.”
“All this way for something broken?” Tooth snorted. “Are you even sure it’s there?”
The question brought back doubts that had plagued them all the way from Volaar Draal. Was one cryptic reference on a stela really enough evidence to venture into jungle ruins? They’d had less evidence when they had gone searching for the Rod of Kings for Haruuc, but they’d also had Geth and Wrath. Duur’kala songs had woken the connection the rod and the sword shared through their origin, allowing Geth to find the way. The shifter still felt that connection-he could draw Wrath and point the way to the rod in Rhukaan Draal without hesitation. He had no sense of the shield or its shattered fragments, though. Maybe because it was broken. Maybe because new songs were needed. Maybe because the fragments of the shield no longer existed in Suud Anshaar or anywhere else.
Ekhaas pushed back the doubt. After Volaar Draal, if they didn’t have hope of finding something in Suud Anshaar, they had nothing. She had nothing. “Absolutely certain,” she said.
Tooth shook his head, but then looked at Ekhaas hopefully. “If do you see any treasure, could you bring some back to me? Just to prove that I was here, of course.”
“Of course,” said Ekhaas.
The sun rose the next day to the kind of sticky, mist-shrouded morning they’d come to expect in the Khraal. They set off early, Tooth leading them with even more care than he normally did. About mid-morning, with the mist burned away, he paused to sniff the air, then cautiously pulled aside a big fern. Behind it were the gnawed and broken bones of a jungle boar-several boars, Ekhaas realized-all heaped up together. The bones were several days old, but there was a foul tang in the air that had nothing to do with rot.
“Varags,” said Tooth. “They piss on the remains of their kills.”
“There’s not much left for a scavenger to pick over,” observed Geth.
“They don’t piss on the remains to spoil them. They do it to mark their pack’s territory.”
Geth bared his teeth. “They sound more like animals than goblins.”
“They are more animal than dar,” Tooth said. He glanced sideways at Ekhaas. “There’s an old legend that the Dhakaani used magic to breed them out of hobgoblins and dire wolves.”
“That’s just a legend,” said Ekhaas stiffly. “Legends also say that before the rise of Dhakaan, hobgoblins bred bugbears as warriors and goblins as slaves.”
“Didn’t they?” asked Tenquis. “I’d heard that they did.”
Ekhaas gave the tiefling a dark look. So did Chetiin.
Marrow, sniffing around the bones, squatted beside it and sprayed her urine onto the stinking heap. Tooth noticed what she was doing too late to stop her. “No!” he snarled. “Balinor’s blood, if they come this way now, they’ll know we were here.”
The worg snarled back at him, and Chetiin clarified, “She says that if they mark their territory with scent, they’ll already know we were here when they come this way. Now they’ll also know this pack has a strong female with them.”
Tooth grimaced. “That isn’t likely to help. Keep going and stay alert. Varags spend most of the day sleeping, but when they hunt, they’re almost silent.”
The sun rose to its apex, and the stifling heat of the morning became oppressive. They saw and heard nothing more of the varags, though once or twice Ekhaas thought she caught a whiff of varag urine. Tooth’s wariness was contagious. Ekhaas found herself tensing up and frequently had to force her body to relax. Geth didn’t so much walk as prowl, hand never far from Wrath’s hilt, the hair on his neck and forearms as visibly ruffled as Marrow’s coat. Chetiin all but vanished into the undergrowth, invisible unless one knew where to look for him. Tenquis held his wand at the ready, twitching it at every unexpected noise or motion.
The end of the undergrowth was so sudden, it was startling. One moment they were among trees and ferns, and the next they were stepping out onto the hard surface of an ancient Dhakaani road. Trees grew together overhead, the canopy turning the road into a tunnel. In spite of its age, the road had survived remarkably well. The black paving stones had mostly remained level, and few plants broke through between them.
“The last landmark,” said Tooth. “Stories said there was a road running through the jungle to Suud Anshaar.” He looked to Geth and Ekhaas. “We can follow it and be there faster, but we’re more visible.”
“We’re not entirely silent when we have to chop our way through the jungle, either,” Geth pointed out. “Follow the road.”
Tooth answered with a tight nod and moved off into the gloom.
“We always seem to walk roads the Dhakaani laid down,” murmured Chetiin as they followed. “Here. On our journey to Darguun as we rode up to the Marguul Pass. In the Seawall Mountains when we sought the Rod of Kings. Even the road to Volaar Draal-built by Kech Volaar in imitation of the Dhakaani. We’re chasing the empire.”
“Everywhere we go, Dhakaan was there before us,” said Ekhaas. “It stretched from one side of Khorvaire to the other. From ruins in the Endworld Mountains in the east to Yrlag along the Grithic River in the west; from Ja’shaarat, the city that forms the foundations of Sharn, in the south, and north to-” She shrugged. “There are legends that say dar reached the Frostfell during the height of Dhakaan’s power. We live with the ghosts of the empire.”
“And under the rod’s influence, Tariic would re-create it.” Chetiin walked a few paces in silence before adding, “Do you think such a thing would be so bad?”
Ekhaas’s ears flicked. “For most of my life,” she said, “I have been devoted to the memory of the empire. As Kech Volaar, I wouldn’t have wanted anything more than the glories of Dhakaan reborn. But the cost?” She spread her hands. “Even with the power of the Rod of Kings behind him, Tariic would face a battle with every other nation of Khorvaire.”
“The rod pushes him, shows him how an emperor ruled,” said Chetiin. “He doesn’t see the world as it is anymore, only as it was. Without the rod-without Tariic…”
Geth, walking ahead with Tenquis, looked back at them. “Are you seriously talking about a new empire?” he asked incredulously.
“A dream doesn’t die so easily, Geth,” Ekhaas said. “Dhakaan is with dar every moment, every day, and”-she stamped the surface of the road-“everywhere we go. The reminders of our past surround us. They are us. The Dhakaani knew muut and atcha. They had duur’kala. They gave birth to the shaarat’khesh. Some records in the vaults of Volaar Draal suggest that the oldest of the lowland Ghaal’dar clans like the Rhukaan Taash, the Gantii Vus, and the Mur Talaan might have origins in companies within the imperial armies.”
“Six thousand years ago when the empire fell!”
“It’s hard to break from the traditions of millennia. The legacy of Dhakaan marks our lives in ways we can’t control. Honor and duty bind us. We don’t just live with ghosts-we live under the tyranny of ghosts.” Ekhaas let a crooked smile emerge onto her face. “Just because I don’t believe a return to the Age of Dhakaan is possible doesn’t mean I don’t still dream about it.”
“Haruuc could have done it,” Tenquis said suddenly. “I’m no goblin, but I would have followed him.”
“Cho,” agreed Tooth. The bugbear had also slowed to listen to their conversation. “Haruuc could have. If the Last War had ended differently-”
He didn’t have the chance to finish his speculation. Some change in the rising heat of the afternoon brought a sluggish breeze to stir the leaves along the side of the road. Marrow’s head snapped up and around, her nostrils flaring, a growl rumbling from her throat. Chetiin whirled. “Varags!”
