But it wasn’t just goblins and hobgoblins and bugbears who moved out of their way. In the rush of his first day in Rhukaan Draal, Makka hadn’t understood how many different races inhabited the city. Nor had he appreciated the range of those who made prayers to the Six. A stout dwarf merchant dressed in fine silk bent his head to Pradoor. A shifter with feral eyes and matted hair simpered and whined like a dog. A rangy gnoll, as tall as Makka and with a head like a hyena, bowed low and forced the coffle of slaves she led to their knees as well. Even a fey eladrin, wrapped in a silvery cloak that the ilth of the streets did not seem to touch, lowered pearly eyes as they passed.
And there were offerings! From the moment that he and Pradoor had left the alley where he had come close to death, people had thrust gifts upon them. Sometimes they requested blessings “A new sword, Pradoor!”
“My children, Pradoor!”
“I fight in the games tomorrow, Pradoor!”
— but often they were given up with only a word of praise for one or all of the Six. Meat, bread, wine, beer, a fine knife, coins of copper and silver, so many offerings that Pradoor directed Makka to take a sack from a shop. The merchant bowed and scraped as if the theft was an honor.
Much of what they were given was handed out again to beggars, but Makka’s belly was full and the sack was never empty. The knife found a place at his belt. When Pradoor was tired, it seemed like all they had to do was turn a corner and they were met with an offer of a place to rest.
“Pradoor,” Makka said as his third day in Rhukaan Draal drew toward dusk, “are there other priests of the Six in Rhukaan Draal?”
Pradoor laughed her shrill cackle. “Ah, it speaks! I wondered if the Keeper had kept hold of your voice when I snatched you back from him.” She tugged on one of Makka’s ears. “Yes, there are other priests. Haruuc spread the faith of the Sovereign Host, but the old faith of the people never went away. Priests of the Six are like mice in Rhukaan Draal-and most hide like mice too! They scurry about in shrines and temples, afraid of Haruuc’s pet cats. They’ll grow bold sometimes, but only Pradoor has the faith to walk the streets!”
“You don’t walk, I carry you,” said Makka.
Pradoor pulled his ear hard enough to make him wince. “You serve as I serve!” she said. “I keep the old ways alive. The faithful may seek out shrines from time to time, but they see me and they remember the hold of the Six on their lives. When the city starved, I led the famine march. When the Night of Long Shadows falls, I tell the stories that make the faithful roar and nonbelievers tremble. I feel the mood of the streets and the people.” Her voice sank into a harsh croak. “The age turns. Rhukaan Draal is the axle and I am the pin.”
“Do you mean the war with the elves?” Makka asked.
Rumors had spread through the streets all day, growing wilder and wilder with each telling. Raiders had destroyed clanholds. Fires had consumed eastern Darguun, the smoke blotting out the sun at dawn. Valenar cavalry had crossed the Mournland and were riding on Rhukaan Draal. Darguun would follow Dhakaan into the dust of ages. All of the elves of Eberron had risen to war, determined to exterminate the dar-unless dar marched to destroy them first, which they undoubtedly would because Haruuc himself had returned from the dead to reclaim the Rod of Kings and lead Darguun to victory!
Makka believed less than a quarter of what he heard. Something was happening, there was no doubting it, but it could have been anything from a pitched battle to a mere skirmish. Still, he had seen hobgoblins and bugbears with the look of seasoned warriors checking armor, sharpening weapons, and glaring murder at any elves they saw. War it was, then.
Pradoor’s ears twitched. “The war is a part of it as I am a part of it and you are a part of it,” she said. “The Six give straw to some, clay or steel to others. What we are given makes no difference-we are judged by what we make of it.”
Sudden certainty uncoiled in Makka’s mind. “I am given steel,” he said.
“Yes,” said Pradoor. “You are a warrior called to serve.”
Makka twisted his head so that he could see Pradoor out of the corner of his eye. “What were you?” he asked. “What are you given?”
Pradoor laughed again, her cackle rising above the noise of the street. “No one who has served me has ever dared to ask that question!”
“Are you going to answer it?”
Blind eyes turned to a red sky and the setting sun. “I was a midwife,” said Pradoor. “I am given souls.” Then she pulled back her hand and smacked the back of his head. “Now turn here!” she commanded. “And hurry. We are expected.”
Makka turned and strode along another narrow crooked street. A hobgoblin working the edge of a well-used sword with a whetstone glanced up and gave him a nod. Makka returned it.
Full dark had fallen and the streets had come to life when the tight-packed buildings fell away. A crowd stood in the space beyond. Makka instinctively held back to assess what lay ahead. Pradoor smacked his skull. “Keep going.”
He stepped out from the shadow of the buildings and into an unpaved square over which arched the first trees he’d seen since before he entered Rhukaan Draal. They were twisted, spindly things, much like the guul’dar who lived in the city, with smooth trunks he could have circled with his hands and thin canopies that barely iltered the moonlight. Torches-real burning torches and not harsh magical imitations-had been hammered into the ground around them and wedged into their lower branches. Figures roamed the square in small groups, talking quietly and casting shadows against the smoky flames. There was something at the heart of the square among the trees, something that looked like a dark jumble, though he could make out no more against the torchlight and the shifting shadows.
“What is this place?” he asked Pradoor.
“Somewhere older than Rhukaan Draal, a place that was here before the city and that the city surrounded but could not fully consume. People come here when they are uncertain or when they’re afraid. I always find them here.” She tapped his head again, gently this time, and he continued on toward the dark jumble among the trees.
He had taken only a few paces before some of those in the square noticed him-or rather, noticed Pradoor. A pair of hobgoblins talking with their heads together looked up. Their ears rose, then they bent their heads and murmured, “Pradoor.”
Their voices drew the attention of others, who bent their heads and spoke Pradoor’s name in turn. The respect that the wizened goblin woman had received on the streets of Rhukaan Draal had left Makka amazed. The respect she received as they passed through the square came close to adoration. The bending heads were like grass in a windy field; the chorus of her name was like the whispering of a breeze. “Pradoor.” “Pradoor.” “Pradoor.”
They moved under the branches of the trees, and for a moment they were alone. The dark jumble resolved itself into a pile of weathered, lichen-covered rocks. A gaping hole among them plunged into the ground, and Makka thought he could hear the rush of water. The rocks were an ancient well, he realized, and the water below some hidden branch of the Ghaal River-and yet there was something more here, as if a vast and unseen presence had focused its attention on this spot.
He knew the feeling. The cursed valley that had lain below the camp of the White Stone tribe, the valley that Dagii of Mur Talaan, Ekhaas of Kech Volaar, and the rest of their party had disturbed, had felt like this. No bugbear of the tribe had ever gone further than the edge of the ancient trees that covered the valley floor, but all of them had gone at least that far, if only so they understood why the valley should be left alone and the trolls that lived there kept sated.
But Pradoor seemed to have no fear of the strange presence. Her fingers on his head urged him forward until he stood beside the rocks and above the hole. “Turn,” she said in his ear, and he did.