Ashi reached for the power of her dragonmark, feeling its heat flash across her skin and the clarity of its protection settle over her mind, before she realized that anyone who fought her guard was probably an ally. Still, she dashed quickly across the room and settled into a defensive stance at the side of the door, ready for whoever or whatever came through. Bolts and lock rattled. Ashi drew back her arm to strike. The door opened.
“Lady Ashi,” said a voice with a heavy Goblin accent, “I’m going to enter. Hold your blow.”
The speaker waited for a moment, long enough for her to grasp his message, then stepped through the door. Ashi let her arm fall. “Keraal?”
Dagii’s lieutenant thumped a fist against his chest in a salute. The chain that was his weapon rattled. “Dagii sends his greetings and asks you to come with us. There is little time.” He stepped aside, and three more hobgoblins entered, carrying the corpse of the dead bugbear between them. None of them wore a crest, but Ashi thought she recognized them as members of the Iron Fox.
“How-?” she began, then looked back up at Keraal. “Did Dagii tell you Tariic threatened to have him killed if I escape?”
She wouldn’t have put it past the warlord to keep that bit of information from his men, but Keraal nodded. “He expects the attempt will come from one of the Kech Shaarat, but he doesn’t intend to be around the Sword Bearers for long. He is turning his back on Tariic.” Keraal’s ears flicked. “Dagii also told me that you will be killed if he defies Tariic. That’s why you’re coming with us.”
Ashi’s head whirled. Had Tariic anticipated this? Without her, he had no hold over Dagii once the Iron Fox was beyond Rhukaan Draal-unless he wanted to come chasing after them with the Rod of Kings. But there was another problem. She held out her wrists, displaying the silver cuffs Tariic had forced on her. “I can’t leave Rhukaan Draal with these on,” she said.
“What Cannith made, Cannith can defeat,” said Keraal. He produced a pouch and opened it to show her three vials of pale blue milky liquid in its carefully padded interior. “Dagii procured these. They’ll help you resist the cold. Cannith magewrights travel with the Iron Fox. Once we’re beyond Rhukaan Draal and before we leave Tariic’s service, one of them will be made to remove the cuffs.” He put the pouch in her hands.
She stared at it for an instant. Keraal’s ears flicked, and he gave a thin smile.
“Dagii thinks in strategy,” he said. “Come.” He pulled her out of the door. In the room beyond, the other soldiers of the Iron Fox were cleaning up blood spilled in her jailer’s death. Bloody rags were thrown into the cell, and the door closed, bolted, and locked. Until that door was opened, there was no sign that the jailer hadn’t simply walked away from his post, leaving her safely locked up.
Keraal sent his chain wrapping around his torso with a quick flip of his wrist, then pulled on a bulky coat discarded outside the door of the outer room to cover the weapon. Another soldier whirled a cloak over Ashi. “Suspicious,” said Keraal, “but it will have to do.”
Ashi pulled a hood up over her head. “Where are we going? I saw Tariic riding out to give his blessing to Dagii.”
“The blessing takes place at the arena. We’ll join the Iron Fox there. You’ll be carried out of Rhukaan Draal in one of our weapons carts. While the Iron Fox receives Tariic’s blessing, though, there’s something you need to do.”
From a pocket of his coat, he took a familiar folded paper and handed it to Ashi. “Dagii instructs you to find Pater d’Orien. You won’t have difficulty-Tariic hasn’t bothered instructing his guards to watch for you, and all of the envoys will sit together in the arena. Once you find Pater, use your dragonmark to free him from the influence of the Rod of Kings. Tell him to use his dragonmark to leave Rhukaan Draal immediately and carry this warning to Breland. Once you’ve done that, return to us and hide. Faalo”-he gestured to one of the other soldiers-“will be waiting with the cart to hide you.”
Once again, Ashi found herself staring at what Keraal had put in her hands, then she looked up at him. “I would have thought you’d welcome an attack by Darguun on Breland. You rebelled against Haruuc because he held the warlords back.”
Keraal’s face darkened a little at the reminder. “I don’t have any love for Breland,” he said, “but Dagii has shown me why Tariic’s war will only bring disaster for Darguun. Now hurry. I know the passages that a man condemned to the arena walks. We’ll go that way to avoid the crowds, but it will still take time.” Keraal turned for the stairs that led down. “Dagii’s strategy has a schedule. There’s no room for delays or errors.”
The people of Rhukaan Draal were packed into the streets around the arena. Ekhaas couldn’t remember seeing so many, even during the funerary games for Haruuc. Fortunately, they didn’t have to try and fight their way through. Geth led them to one of the monuments the old lhesh had erected around the city and indicated a heavy door behind a barred gate that was built into its base. “Open that.”
Chetiin set to work. In the few moments that it took him to open first the gate, then the door, Ekhaas looked up at the monument. It depicted a hobgoblin warrior carrying a sword and a wide shield-and wearing the horn-adorned ancestral armor of the warlord of the Mur Talaan clan. Geth followed her gaze. “Fenic,” he said. “Haruuc’s first shava. Dagii’s father.”
The door creaked open onto tightly curled stairs going down into darkness. “Will we need light?” Ekhaas asked.
“No.” Geth started down the stairs. “Haruuc had a tunnel built, a way to bring prisoners from Khaar Mbar’ost if they’re too hated to transport through the streets. And a way to leave the arena discreetly or in an emergency. I used it a couple of times during his funerary games. There are everbright lanterns lighting it.”
The tunnel was cramped, just wide enough for two people to slide past each other, barely high enough for a bugbear to stand upright. The lanterns were few and widely spaced, giving just enough light to pass along the tunnel. In the midpoint between one and the next, the darkness was complete, even to goblin eyes. Distant sound-the roar of a crowd, the stomping of feet-carried along the corridor.
They’d just passed into the second of the deep shadows, well away from the stairs, when they heard footsteps behind them. All of them froze instantly. Ekhaas recognized the sound of boots coming on at a brisk pace. Through the gloom, she could just make out half-a-dozen figures hurrying along the tunnel. They were armed. She found Geth’s arm and whispered in his ear. “Are there other ways out?”
“Only into the arena.”
“I could take them,” Midian murmured.
“We’d have to deal with bodies,” said Geth. “Stay quiet and keep ahead of them. The arena isn’t far.”
They moved on, staying to the shadows, darting through the light only when those behind them were also under lanterns. Unfortunately, their pursuers weren’t as concerned with stealth as they were and gained ground rapidly. Ekhaas looked ahead and saw a rectangle of brighter light. The exit into the arena-she hoped.
Then the footsteps behind them paused abruptly and she knew they’d been spotted.
“Run!” snarled Geth at the same moment a voice from behind rasped in Goblin, “Don’t let them escape!”
Boots thundered along the tunnel.
Ekhaas’s ears flicked back. “Keep going! I’ll slow them down!” She whirled, stepped to one side, as Tenquis, then Midian and Chetiin, sped past. She was under a light, their pursuers momentarily lost in darkness. That was perfect. She called to mind the spell of glittering dust that had blinded the varags and drew breath to sing.
A voice-a human voice-rolled out of the shadow. “Stop! Stop! That’s Ekhaas!”