At Ashi’s side, Vounn said calmly, “Ashi, we’re here to show our respect for Haruuc, not start a fight.” The gray-haired lady seneschal of House Deneith-special envoy of the House to the court of Haruuc Shaarat’kor, and Ashi’s mentor in the ways of civilization-nodded pointedly downward.
Ashi realized her hand had gone to the hilt of her sword.
Her first thought, as it always was when she looked at the weapon was, no, not my sword, only the sword I wear. Her sword, the honor blade that had belonged to her grandfather, Kagan, and that had been the first clue she was more than just a hunter of the savage Bonetree clan, had been lost in the wilderness of the Seawall Mountains in the race to recover the Rod of Kings. It had been a terrible bargain. She wished that the rod had stayed lost. She would have Kagan’s sword and Haruuc would be alive.
But she understood what Vounn was trying to tell her. She couldn’t let herself get caught up in Pater and Sindra’s argument. She might not have been walking near the front of the procession as Ekhaas, or Dagii, or Geth were, but she still represented House Deneith. She let her hand fall back to her side.
Vounn leaned closer so that only Ashi could hear her words. “The mourning period has been difficult-for all of us.”
She caught Ashi’s eye as she said it.
“I appreciate that, Vounn,” said Ashi.
Vounn drew back, eyes still on her. Ashi waited a moment before she glanced away, then didn’t look at her mentor again. She knew Vounn had guessed she was holding something back, just as Senen Dhakaan knew Ekhaas wasn’t telling everything. The difference, Ashi thought, was that she wished she could tell Vounn what she knew. When Vounn had first become her mentor in House Deneith, they had been in conflict: a barbarian bearing a rare and powerful dragonmark and the diplomat tasked with turning her into a lady. Talent, knowledge, and poise counted as much or more than an individual’s mark for respect within the house-the mark Vounn bore was small, capable of creating a shield against physical blows for a time, yet she had the ear of Deneith’s patriarch himself-but Ashi’s deeds in recovering the Rod of Kings had opened a new path of respect between the two women. Ashi had taken some of Vounn’s lessons to heart and Vounn had begun to trust her more, treating her as the capable woman she was, not merely as an asset of House Deneith. If Ashi could have returned that trust by telling her the truth about the rod she would have. She didn’t dare. The rod’s secret had to be kept.
They were going to need help soon, though. There had been no word yet from Midian or even from the messenger Dagii had sent to find him. She, Geth, and the others still hadn’t figured out a solution for the problem posed by the rod-as the days left ahead of them shrank, theft or destruction looked like the only options. If they wanted to save Darguun, they might have to risk destroying it.
At least she’d had nothing to report to Geth of unrest or rumors among the envoys of the dragonmarked houses or the ambassadors of the nations of Khorvaire. She’d listened to them as Geth had asked, but most were either angered at being trapped in Rhukaan Draal for the mourning period or uncertain what to make of the shifter who had seized Haruuc’s power. Only the nations of Breland and Zilargo shared a direct border with Darguun. The Brelish ambassador hinted that they were watching events closely. The Zil ambassador, a gnome like most Zils, put on a show of being timid and flighty, but Ashi could tell she was as sharp as a knife. Against Geth’s prediction, almost none of the ambassadors or the envoys were interested in making deals with someone they considered just a figurehead. They preferred to wait until the proper heir was determined.
Perhaps the only other good thing that could be said of the mourning period was that there had been no sign of Chetiin. If the goblin was still in the city, he wasn’t making himself known. Nor were any members of the shaarat’khesh, the Silent Blades, or their cousins, the taarka’khesh, the Silent Wolves. The Silent Clans might just as well have vanished from Rhukaan Draal. It was probably a good thing, too. Public anger had turned against the secretive goblins. City guards charged with enforcing the terms of mourning under Dagii’s authority had kept things quiet so far, but those terms ended with Haruuc’s entombment. Envoys and ambassadors had been quietly visiting House Deneith to arrange the hire of additional mercenaries to supplement their security in the coming days.
It occurred to Ashi suddenly that Vounn had made sure she was in attendance during those discreet visits. She’d thought it was just further training in the business of the House, but what if it hadn’t been? Much of the information-nothing damning or private, only rumors and descriptions of mood-that she’d passed along to Geth had come from those meetings. Ashi looked back to the lady seneschal and found her still watching her. Vounn’s eyebrow rose again and she smiled briefly before turning away.
If she hadn’t been in the midst of the procession, Ashi would have stopped cold with surprise. As it was, she stumbled. Maybe Vounn didn’t know everything that was happening, but her mentor was helping her anyway!
“Ashi?” Pater d’Orien caught her arm. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Thank you.” She smiled at the heavy-set viceroy of House Orien. In spite of his rivalry with Sindra d’Lyrandar, Ashi liked Pater. He had the manners and appearance of a caravan master in a fancy coat but behind his blunt exterior was a keen and cunning mind. “Excuse me, please-I need to catch up to Vounn.”
“She won’t be going far,” Pater said, nodding ahead. “This is the end of the-”
A swelling of pipes and drums drowned out his words. Ashi looked around and realized that they had reached the edge of Rhukaan Draal. The city dwindled away into a scattering of huts and shacks, though the road continued. The crowd was as thick as ever, but suddenly it was silent. When the crash of the pipes and drums ended, Ashi realized that she could hear another kind of thunder: the noise of the first cataract of the mighty Ghaal River, the steep stretch of whitewater west of Rhukaan Draal that prevented ships from progressing upstream beyond the city.
Ahead, the crowd ended, held back by a low wall of stone topped by a black iron fence, while the procession marched on through an imposing heavy arch as big as a good-sized house and built of the same red stone that had been quarried for Khaar Mbar’ost. Ashi heard Sindra snort. She was a half-elf and her fine-featured nose turned up in disdain. “A Karrnathi victory arch. Not very original.”
“Get closer,” Pater told her. “I think you’ll find it’s more original than you think.”
Ashi knew victory arches-House Deneith was based in the ancient Karrnathi city of Karrlakton, where monuments were nearly as common as hovels-and as they approached the arch in the wall, she could see what Pater meant. Karrnathi arches were typically decorated simply with fluted columns and a band of relief sculpture around the top, crowned perhaps with a memorial statue. This arch was different. Reliefs crawled across the red stone walls: hobgoblins and bugbears and goblins in battle and on the hunt. It was difficult to distinguish what they were fighting or hunting, but the scenes of struggle were clear. Nor could the arch properly be called a “victory arch,” because at least as many of the goblins depicted in the fantastic carvings were dead or dying as were triumphant. The higher up the walls the reliefs went, the more dead dar there seemed to be, until just beneath the crown of the arch, where rows of curved spikes jutted out like sinister horns, the carved bodies were piled in heaps. Ashi stole a glance at Sindra. The Lyrandar viceroy looked vaguely unsettled.
The carvings continued in the shadows of the arch as well, though here the dead stood in a parade of figures pierced with swords and crushed with hammers, bristling with arrows and ravaged by monsters, burned, tortured, decapitated, and dismembered. Ashi stared at a bugbear who appeared to be marching onward as if in ignorance of the massive ballista bolt that pierced his belly, and felt recognition. “Baargaar Seven Axes,” she said. “These are the heroes of dar history.”