As the banner-bearers passed through the door, they parted, and for a moment the musicians’ savage music paused. In the unexpected quiet, the gasp that rose from the humans on the dais was clearly audible. Following the banner-bearers were two more hobgoblins, this time mounted, but not on horses. The hobgoblins that guided their mounts through the doors of the Hall of Shields rode on tigers.
“Rond betch!” Ashi murmured in awe. In Azhani, the language of the Shadow Marches clan she’d been born into, it meant “fierce darkness.” She seldom spoke Azhani anymore, but when it came to cursing, she fell back on it instinctively.
The woman at the front of the dais didn’t even turn her head, but in the music’s lull Ashi still heard her disapproving warning. “Ashi! Language!”
The pipes and drums rose again. Unseen behind her veil, Ashi closed her mouth and tried to hold back her frustration and her excitement. Her part in this spectacle was coming soon. Her hand tightened on the hilt of the sword that hung beneath her robes. The robes concealed both the weapon and the fitted trousers and sleeveless shirt that she wore, as well as the sheen of oil on her lean, muscled arms. It wasn’t typical attire for a formal reception ceremony, but her role was going to be a bit more active than that of most of those gathered on the dais.
For the past month, almost since the moment it was announced that Lhesh Haruuc would be sending an emissary to Sentinel Tower, she had been training in the demanding moves of the sword dance, one of the great traditions of House Deneith. The idea had been Vounn’s, of course, but Ashi had found that she enjoyed the training more than most that the lady seneschal had forced on her. The time to show off the results of her hard work was almost upon her. Ashi put Vounn’s rebuke out of her mind and focused on breathing, pushing an easy calm through her limbs. It wasn’t all that different from the anticipation before a battle.
The musicians, banner-bearers, and riders had moved to the sides of the hall, making way for soldiers dressed in full armor. Goblins in light armor with round shields on one arm and maces in the opposite hand, thin javelins strapped across their backs. Hobgoblins in heavier armor, with tall shields and polished swords. Bugbears-the largest of the three goblin races, a head taller than the largest hobgoblin and heavily muscled-with only partial armor to protect their massive frames, carrying huge spiked morningstars that Ashi thought she might have been able to lift but doubted she could have wielded.
And walking behind them, the emissary from Darguun, Tariic of Rhukaan Taash. A handful of other goblins and hobgoblins, a mix of functionaries and councilors, followed in his wake, but Ashi’s eyes-and she felt certain the eyes of everyone else at the front of the hall-were on Tariic. He walked alone, proud as a prince. He wore armor, too, though his was far finer and more ornate. His gauntlets had been fashioned into claws. Spikes protruded from knees and elbows. A skull had been worked in brass along the overlapping plates that protected his chest, and thick tongues of razor-edged steel crossed over his shoulders. Lhesh Haruuc’s emissary could have walked from the halls of Deneith right onto a battlefield and not been out of place.
The last of the marchers parted and took places along the sides of the hall. The plain-garbed functionaries who followed Tariic stopped just inside the doors. Tariic himself strode forward to stand at the heard of his delegation. The music of the pipes and drums swelled, then fell silent. For a moment, all was quiet in the hall. No one and nothing moved, not even the great tigers. Tariic swept the dais with eyes that were a brown so bright they verged on red.
Ashi’s mouth went dry. Her fingers shifted on her sword. Her time was close. The calm in her limbs tightened.
A single gesture broke the stillness in the hall, a single sound the silence. Throughout the Darguuls’ entry, four ranks of black-clad Deneith guards had stood before the dais without moving or reacting. Now, at their head, a guard wearing the plumed helmet of a captain lifted the spear he held and rapped the butt against the stone-tiled floor.
In perfect unison, the ranks stepped apart, splitting and reforming into four tight squares. The movement was so precise that forty-eight pairs of boots made only one sound. The captain’s spear rapped twice on the floor. Two squares advanced. The other two moved in behind. Spears rose-from the back ranks first- and fell forward, then rose again, like wheat bending and standing before gusting wind. The squares broke apart once more, leaving each man standing alone as the guards moved into a series of stamping, thrusting spear forms.
The display was similar to the Darguuls’ only in its incredible discipline. Where the goblins had moved to the din of drum and pipe, the Deneith guards moved only to the cadence of their own boots, the rap of spear butts, and sometimes a sharp shout punctuating the rhythm. Where the Darguuls had been bright and flashing in polished armor, the guards were dark. Even the heads of their spears had been blackened. Where the Darguuls awed with their presence and natural intensity, Deneith awed with consummate skill that came from long hours of training. If any one of the guards had fallen out of rhythm with the others, he would have been skewered.
Ashi saw Tariic’s ears rise in interest and his head nod in appreciation. She drew a deep breath. Now. The guards moved into the last pattern of their drill. Ashi stepped forward.
Vounn put out an arm, blocking her way. Ashi froze, her carefully rehearsed timing broken. “Vounn?” she whispered.
Vounn’s mouth pursed, and her eyes narrowed. Her head twitched in a nearly imperceptible shake as the guards split for the final time to form two lines on each side of the hall and the butts of their spears hit the ground in unison.
The cadence of the drill was replaced by a rippling cry as a figure wearing a robe much like Ashi’s leaped from the other side of the dais. One of the tigers growled and crouched at the sudden movement. Many of the Darguuls flinched, instinctively going on guard.
The figure shrugged as it landed and the enveloping robe fell away. A somewhat older man, a sword in his hand and his chest bare beneath a close-fitting vest, stood revealed. High on his right shoulder, a small pattern of blue and green lines stood out against gleaming, oiled skin. It resembled a tattoo, but no tattoo could have been so bright and alive, and no artist had etched the pattern on the man’s skin. It was a dragonmark, the Mark of Sentinel, a sign of the power that the man carried in his blood as a true-born scion of House Deneith.
Ashi’s gut dropped. Baerer. Her instructor. She twisted and glared at Vounn. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice low. “What’s Baerer doing out there?”
Vounn’s face tightened. “Keep your place, Ashi. We’ll discuss this after the reception.”
“But-”
“Keep your place!” Vounn pushed her back and turned away.
Around them, the other members of House Deneith who stood on the dais shifted in silent witness of the exchange. Ashi clenched her teeth and stepped back. The Darguuls noticed nothing-all their attention was on Baerer as he swept into the sword dance.
Blade up, body rigid as the fine metal. Somewhere in the back of the hall, a bow scraped unseen against the strings of a viol in a long pure note. On the draw of the bow, the blade dropped and Baerer made a slow, stalking circle around the lowered point. There was a soft intake of breath from those on the dais. The point of the sword, suspended in the air, had wavered no more than if it had been fixed in a pivot. A difficult movement, but Baerer had pulled it off.