Word of Traitors: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 2 (51 page)

“And do what?” The old goblin woman clung tight to his shoulder. “Admire the sounds of battle? My place is with you. The age turns.”

Makka bared his teeth for all the good that it did. Her blind eyes didn’t see him. “I can’t fight with you on my back.”

“The age turns around both of us.” Pradoor’s fingers dug into him. “We serve—”

“—the Six,” Makka said through his teeth. “But the Fury puts my revenge before me.”

“Then why do you hesitate to follow her path?” asked Pradoor. “The Six reward those who serve.”

Makka snarled and rose to his feet just as rocks clattered along the arm of the ridge behind him. He whirled to find two of Daavn’s bugbear workers clambering over the crest of the slope. The other bugbears, iron hammer and pry bar in hand, paused at the sight of him. Makka tensed his ears, thrust out his chest, and growled.

The other bugbears hunched back. Their ears flattened and they ducked their heads, offering submission in the ancient manner.
When Makka turned again and continued on up the ridge, they fell into line behind him. On his shoulder, Pradoor chuckled.

He felt like the leader of a tribe again. But better. Stronger. The favor of the Fury was on him.

The age turned around him.

Somewhere behind him, Daavn was shouting his name. He ignored it.

The peak of the ridge broke into a jumble of pits and crevices and more gullies, some shallow, some twice his height in depth, all of them offering hiding places. A scattering of stunted trees and bushes on the backside gave even more cover. The only figures visible were Daavn’s other workers. They saw him and the pair of bugbears that followed him and, one by one, they offered their silent submission. Makka gestured to them all with crisp movements, ordering them to spread out among the broken places of the ridge. His gut told him that his enemies wouldn’t have gone far—they would stay near the tomb.

Daavn and his hobgoblins came trotting up behind him with a clatter of armor. The warlord’s ears were back and his sword was out.
“Maabet
, I knew we should have killed them in the dungeon.”

Makka swung around to glare at him. “Their deaths are mine,” he said. “The Fury gives them to me.”

The guards with Daavn had the sense to flinch back, but Daavn just leaned into Makka’s anger. “If I find them first, I will kill them, gift of the Fury or not. They’re not going to stop Tariic from taking what’s—”

A weird, fluting battlecry and the sudden clash of weapons interrupted him. Makka knew the cry—it belonged to Ashi of Deneith. Shouts in Goblin answered it as bugbears converged on the crevice where the dust of battle rose. Makka put his back to Daavn and raced with them, leaping across the tops of mounds and spires. One bugbear reached the crevice before the others and dropped down into it with a roar, but his cry turned to a gurgle. The swirl of dust faded even as Makka reached the crevice. Two bugbears lay dead within, one stabbed through the heart, one with his belly ripped open.

Their assailants were gone, vanished into the maze of broken
rock. “They’re close!” Makka shouted. “Look for them from above. They can’t hide from you.”

Even as the words left his mouth, one of the other bugbears yelped and fell hard on his face, his feet pulled out from under him by a loop of rope. Makka saw shock in the bugbear’s eyes as he was dragged back. Big hands clutched at the rock, but as half his body disappeared down into a pit, he thrashed abruptly and went still.

The lithe form of a shifter, spattered with blood, vaulted up out of the pit. Geth flashed a grin at Makka, thumped his chest in salute, then dived into another crevice.

Makka howled in rage. Daavn appeared, his guards in close formation behind him. Makka thrust a finger at the crevice. “Geth’s in there! You go after him and we’ll take the top!” He grabbed a bugbear with his other hand and dragged him forward.

Daavn glanced into the crevice—and jerked back as a stone whistled past his head. The warlord’s face twisted in anger. He whirled his sword around his head in command, then he and his soldiers plunged after Geth. Makka raced to the edge of the crevice, shouting for the other bugbears to converge on him.

One of them didn’t make it. A
duur’kala’s
keening song rose on the air. Stone cracked and the worker who had been the first to submit to Makka vanished as the rock wall on which he stood collapsed. His cry rose above the rumble of sliding rock, ending abruptly.

At the same time, a hobgoblin gasped in pain. A blur of hair and blood, Geth popped up out of the crevice and dodged into another. Makka howled again. “It’s like fighting spirits, Pradoor! They strike and run!”

“Make them stand!” the goblin said, slapping his head. “The Fury favors you”—her voice rose—“as the Six favor all those who fight for Darguun!”

The words were met with a roar from
dar
throats, but they were more than just an inspiration. Makka felt the blessing wrap around him like the embrace of victory. Strength and confidence flowed into him. He ripped the bright sword of Deneith from its scabbard and turned, looking for a target. Any target.

Across the ridge, Ashi, a stolen hobgoblin sword poised to strike, rose up silently behind one of the two remaining bugbears.
Makka pointed his sword—her sword—at her. “Fight me, Ashi of Deneith!” he bellowed. “Fight me!”

She jerked at the challenge, startled to be caught. Her intended target turned. Sword met steel bar with the ring of metal on metal. Weapons drew back for another exchange of blows.

Makka charged along the ridge.
“By the Fury, fight me!”

He felt the power of the Fury move through him, binding him to Ashi. She felt it, too. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t let down her guard. The bugbear she fought swung his pry bar. Ashi turned it easily, then whipped her sword at his chest.

The bond between Makka and her tightened like a noose. Sudden pain wracked Ashi’s face—Makka felt an echo of it like the sweetest of stings. Her swing faltered and the killing blow became a flesh wound. Her opponent stumbled back.

Ashi tried to strike him again, but once more Makka felt the Fury’s power pull tight. Ashi’s face grew pale, the swirling lines of her dragonmark leaping out in sharp contrast.

Then he was on her. Human sword in
dar
hands clashed against
dar
sword in human hands.

Through their bond, Makka felt Ashi’s pain ease now that she submitted to the power of his challenge, but it had hurt her. He could see it in her face and feel it in her blows. She was slower than the last time they had fought—even if he was now fighting with Pradoor perched on his shoulder like a cackling bird. The old goblin laughed with glee. “For the Six!” she cried. “For the Six!”

“Close your mouth!” Ashi thrust at Pradoor.

Makka beat her sword down and slashed up on the return blow. Ashi pulled back, but the tip of the bright blade sliced through her shirt and drew a thin red line across her belly. She gasped and circled away. Makka turned with her.

Just in time to see Geth racing to her aid. The shifter moved low and fast like an animal, sword at the ready. Makka grinned. More sacrifices for the altar of his vengeance! He braced himself.

Instead of attacking, Geth slid to a stop and took up a position a spear’s length away from Ashi. Now they both threatened him—attack one and he was vulnerable to the other. It was a cold, calculating strategy. The shifter’s eyes were cool and hard.

And wrong. When he’d faced Geth before, on the dais at Tariic’s coronation, his eyes had been hot and alive with barely contained anger. The hobgoblins who had captured Geth had described his fiery, unflinching attacks. He hadn’t held back.

A strangely familiar sense intruded on Makka’s lust for vengeance. A familiar sense, and a memory: Tariic’s introduction of the changeling Ko, wearing Geth’s face but without Geth’s fear.

Ashi was Ashi, but whoever stood ready to attack him was no more Geth than Ko had been.

Pradoor still cackled on his shoulder, but the rhythm of battle was suddenly quiet in Makka’s heart. He stepped back, turning slightly as he went so that his opponents were forced to move with him—and so that the length of the ridge and the slope that faced Rhukaan Draal came into view.

The door of Haruuc’s tomb stood open. They’d been tricked. Ashi, Ekhaas, and the false Geth were only a distraction.

Conflict roiled inside Makka. Ashi and Ekhaas were here on the ridge and vengeance too long denied called out to him. The Fury blessed his hunt. She’d taken him as her own. Vengeance was his sacred duty. But the Rod of Kings lay within the tomb, the key to Tariic’s ambition, the key to new power for Darguun. The key to new strength for the faithful of the Fury and of all the Dark Six.

The age turns
.

Makka roared and drove directly between Ashi and the false Geth with a suddenness that brought a screech from Pradoor. He slashed left and right, driving his opponents back with powerful blows, then he was past them and running with long leaping strides across the face of the ridge.

“What are you doing?” Pradoor demanded, her words jolted by every step. “The battle—”

“A trick to get us away from the tomb. The door is open—they’ve come for the rod.”

“You have to stop them!”

“I will.” Makka’s teeth clashed together on a hard landing, but he stayed on his feet and slid down the final slope to the bottom of the stairs before the tomb. He grabbed Pradoor, dragged her from his shoulder, and planted her on the ground, turning her so that she faced the fight on the ridge. “Find some way to guard us.”

A smile creased Pradoor’s wrinkled face. She pushed his hand away, turned milky eyes to the sky, and started to chant.

Makka bounded up the steps to the tomb three at a time. He was at the door of the tomb when he heard a dull drone sweep over the ridge, but he didn’t stop to see what it was. Silent as grease, he slipped into the tomb.

There hadn’t been time for a discussion of strategy as they fled up the ridge, only two quick rules from Aruget. Bring down as many of their enemies as possible—and don’t get caught in an open fight.

Ekhaas heard the power that rang in Makka’s challenge to Ashi, and she knew immediately that Ashi had broken the second rule. Unfortunately, she couldn’t
see
what was happening. The song that had collapsed the rock wall under one of Daavn’s bugbear workers, tumbling him into the gully below, had also cut off her easy way out. She turned and raced down the other way to a shadowed gap that marked the way into another of the ridge’s broken passages. Had Tenquis’s attempt to open the tomb worked? She could only hope that it had and that the others were already inside, searching for the rod.

Swords clashed somewhere above. Ekhaas twisted around a corner—and stumbled over the body of one of Daavn’s guards. Her sword grated along rock as she caught herself.

On the slope leading up out of this gully, Daavn and his remaining guards stopped and turned back to stare at her. The warlord’s ears went back. “Go!” he ordered the guards. “Help Makka!”

They raced past him and vanished from sight. Daavn stood ready for her, commanding the high ground, his sword held loose and easy. “Sing,
duur’kala,”
he said. “Something sad. Something for mourning.”

A knife glittered in his hand, held by the blade and ready for throwing.

Ekhaas didn’t hesitate. A song would have brought an attack and Daavn had the advantage of higher ground. She threw herself
at him, charging up the slope and sweeping her sword ahead of her, not high but low. At his feet.

The move startled Daavn. He drew back the throwing knife and released it with a snap of his wrist, but the cast was weak and wide. The slim blade rang on rock. Ekhaas’s attack forced him to hop and dance backward. By the time he had the opportunity to strike back, Ekhaas had secure footing even if she was still below him. Daavn’s sword swung down at her; she managed to raise her blade and block it. Metal skittered on metal, and for a moment the blades locked. Daavn’s lips drew back from his teeth.

“You’re not going to stop Tariic,” he said. “He’ll have the true rod.”

He kicked at her chest. Ekhaas felt the shift in his balance through their braced swords and twisted desperately to the side. The kick missed her and in the heartbeat that it took Daavn to recover his balance, she ran past him and up to the top of the slope.

She could see Ashi now, circling Makka and Pradoor with Aruget at her side. Daavn’s guards and the last of the bugbear workers were closing in. A song might scatter them, but first she would have to deal with Daavn—if she could stay away from the warlord’s sword. “How much has Tariic told you about the rod?” she asked him. “Has he told you that it’s cursed?”

“He’s told us that Haruuc didn’t know how to control its power.” Daavn lunged, whirling his blade. Ekhaas twisted aside and tried to reach under his extended arm, but Daavn was faster and closed his stance quickly. He snapped an elbow up, catching her under the chin and sending her staggering back.

The roar that erupted from Makka gave both of them pause. Ekhaas swung around to catch a glimpse of the bugbear charging past Ashi and Aruget, and leaping down the ridge in the direction of the tomb. Fear clenched a fist in her guts. Their distraction had failed.