The Doom of Kings: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 1 (6 page)

“Lord Baerer,” she said formally, some vestige of eight months of Vounn’s training fighting to the surface. By ancient tradition, any bearer of a dragonmark could claim the title of lord or lady, no matter what their actual station. Even after eight months, Ashi still found the tradition ridiculous and fortunately the members of the houses seldom used the titles among themselves in casual
conversation or with friends. There were times, however, when even she had to admit they were useful. Baerer winced at the harshness in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Vounn took me aside just before the reception and said there’d been a change in plans. She offered me the chance to dance for the Darguuls. Who could say no to that?”

“Not you, I see. I thought you were my friend, not just my teacher, Baerer.” Hot anger scorched away formality. “You know how hard I worked. Did you think I would just give up?”

“Vounn didn’t tell me anything about why you weren’t dancing.”

Ashi scowled. “Because
she
didn’t think I was good enough. She thought my dance was too raw.”

“Raw?” Baerer looked her in the eyes for the first time. “I would have said that was the most attractive thing about your dancing.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry I took your place, Ashi. I think you would have been good. Vounn should have let you dance.”

“Tell her that,” said Ashi. “You’re probably going to be sitting beside her at dinner.”

Confusion crossed Baerer’s face, but she’d had enough of talking and she wasn’t in the mood to explain herself. She pushed past him and strode on down the passage.

“Ashi, wait—” He caught her arm.

She turned on reflex, twisting her arm around his and swinging him around. The dancing master kept his balance and turned with her, but still ended up thrust face-first against the nearest wall.

“Leave me alone, Baerer,” she said in his ear, then let him loose.

He looked back at her with alarm and a little fright on his face. “I just wanted to warn you,” he said. He twitched his head down the hall. “If you’re going that way and through the Venture Court, you’re going to run into the Darguuls. Tariic’s honor guard is camped out in the court. The atmosphere is … uneasy.”

Ashi smiled, baring her teeth. “Good.” She turned again and continued on her way.

Sentinel Tower had been built upon and expanded many times during its centuries of existence. In many ways, it had become more of a sprawling complex than a tower. Its inner reaches were forbidden to all but the members of House Deneith while the outer areas were filled with workshops and supply yards, all as busy as any market. A middle ring was where business with major clients took place and where important guests like Tariic were lodged. The entire tower was riddled with ancient passages that no longer went anywhere, abandoned chambers waiting for a new use, and old courtyards that had once been open to the sky but were now closed in by more recent construction.

The Venture Court was one such courtyard. It hadn’t yet been covered over entirely, but the rooms above it had been built progressively out into open space, leaving only a small gap to the open air. Ashi had always thought the court resembled nothing so much as one of the long houses built by the orc tribes of the Shadow Marches, complete with a smoke hole in the roof.

That night, the gap to the sky really was a smoke hole. Ashi paused at the edge of the court and stared in spite of her anger.

Baerer hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d described the Darguuls as “camped out” in the court. A big fire built in a great copper bowl cast a flickering light that reflected in streaks and sparks from the weapons and armor of Tariic’s musicians, banner-bearers, and guards. While some of the goblins dozed near the fire, others stood in a watchful perimeter as if they expected an attack at any time—defensive measures more suited to soldiers on the move than guests at Sentinel Tower. And the goblin races, she knew, didn’t need the fire. They could see perfectly well in the dark. The fire was there so that others could see them and be intimidated into keeping their distance. It set the warrior in Ashi on edge.

Apparently she wasn’t the only one to react that way. At every entrance to the court and from the windows overlooking it, House guards stood in silent response to the Darguuls’ presence. One of them stepped into her path to block her from entering the court, then saw the mark on her face and stepped back again.

“Lady Ashi,” he said with a nod. “You might want to go around Venture Court tonight. It may not be safe to cross.”

One irritation after another. Going around the court would just slow her. The nearest gate out of Sentinel Tower was just beyond the court. Going around would all but force her to another gate. “Thank you,” she said, “I’ll be fine.”

She saw the guard’s throat move as he swallowed. “Lady Seneschal Vounn won’t be—” His words faded as he watched her expression darken at Vounn’s name, and he swallowed again. “May we at least escort you across the court, lady?”

Ashi fought the temptation to punch him in his whining mouth. “No,” she said and walked out into the courtyard.

She could feel every gaze inside and around the court, human and goblin, turn to follow her. It only fuelled her anger. Was she some delicate flower in need of protection? Clenching her teeth, she marched straight across the court, heading directly for the passage that would take her to the gate and out of Sentinel Tower.

Straight across the court was also straight through the massed Darguuls. One of them, a hobgoblin, came to meet her as she approached. “I am Aruget,” he said. Unlike Tariic, he had a heavy Goblin accent that drew out the middle of his words and bit off the end. “I serve Tariic, who serves Lhesh Haruuc. Go around our lines.”

Ashi stopped and glared at him. “I am Ashi d’Deneith. I am angry. Get out of my way.”

Aruget’s eyes were deep brown flecked with orange, and he had the ritual scars across his forehead that Ashi had learned were a sign of the Rhukaan Taash clan. He stared at her and she stared back, neither of them blinking. For a very long moment, the only sound and movement in Venture Court came from the jumping, snapping flames in the big fire bowl.

The hobgoblin was the first to look away, his gaze lifting and going over Ashi’s head. “You may pass,” he growled softly and moved out of her way.

“Ta muut,”
Ashi said as she passed. It was a Goblin phrase she had learned from Ekhaas. Roughly translated, it meant “you have honor,” but Ekhaas had explained that it was the proper way to say thank you without implying weakness or debt. She didn’t look back to see Aruget’s reaction to being spoken to in his own
language. She kept her eyes on the Darguuls ahead, walking without hesitation. Hobgoblins, bugbears, and goblins stepped aside to let her by. As she passed one knot of goblins, she heard a thin murmuring break out in her wake. She looked over her shoulder, her hand hovering near her sword briefly before falling away. One of the goblins was trying to suppress laughter—not at her, but to judge from the nervous glances of those with him, at Aruget. The hobgoblin’s face darkened, and he bore down on the laughing goblin like a storm, snarling rapid words that made the goblin stop snickering very quickly.

It felt good to see someone else on the receiving end of trouble for a change, Ashi decided. It felt good to have her way in an argument, too. A little of her anger lifted from her, and her step was lighter as she passed into the shadows of the passage on the other side of the court.

No one in the outer zone of Sentinel Tower stopped her or even bothered to give her a second glance. The gate she had chosen was a grubby thing, used mostly for the movement of supplies and mercenary troops into and out of the tower. The higher ranking members of House Deneith almost never came this way. She paused for a moment before approaching the gate and covered up her dragonmark as best she could. Gloves hid the backs of her hands, and a carefully folded and tied scarf masked her forehead and the lower part of her face. Within Sentinel Tower, her Siberys Mark gained her respect. Beyond, it just as often aroused suspicion and superstition. It also identified her. Even covered, she felt a knot in her belly as she walked under the stone arch, half-expecting that word from Vounn might have reached the guards ahead of her and that at any moment they would call out for her to stop.

They didn’t. She left Sentinel Tower and walked out into the city of Karrlakton.

There was little to reveal at first that she had left the tower, aside from open sky and crooked streets instead of straight passages. The area outside the gate was all but an extension of the area inside,
bustling with evening trade. There was a sense of greater freedom out of the tower, though, a more relaxed tone in the voices of traders and carters who dealt with the great house but didn’t serve it. The farther she went from the tower and the more evening slid into night, the lighter the traffic in the streets became. The tension between Ashi’s shoulders eased a bit more.

It was impossible to escape Deneith entirely, however. The House didn’t rule in Karrlakton, but it certainly dominated every aspect of the city. As vast as Sentinel Tower was, Deneith’s activities spilled out of it. Training grounds and barracks, workshops and warehouses, even ordinary houses—every third building that Ashi passed bore the crest of Deneith. The roots of Deneith went even deeper, Ashi knew. Warlords who carried the Mark of Sentinel had ruled the area of what would become Karrlakton before the founding of the ancient kingdom of Karrnath, even before the creation of House Deneith proper. The city had grown under the gaze of the House. Parts of it were as old as parts of Sentinel Tower. For many centuries, Deneith money had built roads, walls, and shrines.

Ashi turned toward one of the oldest sections of the city. The sense of history appealed to her. It was soothing to be among things that had stood for centuries, unchanged and unaffected by the small frustrations of everyday life. When she was gone—when Vounn was gone—they would still be there. As old as Sentinel Tower was, she couldn’t feel the same thing there. Everything was too busy, too imprinted with the ordinary. The oldest areas of the tower were forbidden to all but the most senior members of the House, as if the stones held some dreadful secret. The only peace she had found was in the archives, where books replaced stone, and if they weren’t quite as permanent and unchanging, they had even more fascinating stories to tell as her ability to read grew.

She had found her grandfather in the archives. All she’d known of him before she met Singe was that his name had been Kagan and that the hunters of the Bonetree had found him in the Shadow Marches, badly injured and clutching his fine sword. Too deeply wounded ever to fight again, he had been brought into the clan and had fathered many children for the Bonetree over several
years—until he’d gone mad and murdered all of them save one, who had become Ashi’s father, before taking his own life.

In the archives of Sentinel Tower, she’d discovered a different man, a hero of the Sentinel Marshals. He had been awarded an honor blade, the same bright sword that rode her hip, for bringing to justice a pair of notorious murderers. The archive’s record ended with his final assignment: the pursuit of one of the pair after her escape. To the best knowledge of House Deneith, neither he nor his quarry had ever been seen again.

After reading the record of Kagan, Ashi had promised herself that she would become a Sentinel Marshal. She’d mentioned the idea to Vounn. The lady seneschal had answered her with a silence that spoke louder than words. Ashi carried the Siberys Mark of Sentinel. She was too valuable to be allowed to roam far from the reach of the House.

She clenched her teeth as she reached Karrlakton’s old quarter. Anger rose in her again, replacing the calm she should have felt in the shadow of the ancient buildings. She was more than her dragonmark, no matter what people might think, whether they were people like Vounn who expected her to use the mark for the profit of Deneith, or people like the anonymous House guard who saw her only as a scion of the house, or people in the street who reacted to a Siberys Mark with superstitious unease, or people like Aruget and the other Darguuls who—