The Doom of Kings: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 1 Read Online Free Page A

himself—and shifted.
    Long, long ago, the gift—some said curse—of lycanthropy had risen among humans. By day men and women might have been as normal as their neighbors, but by night, when any one of Eberron’s twelve moons shone full, they became beasts. Werewolves. Werebears. Rats. Tigers. Boars. Sometimes they had managed to escape the anger and fear of their neighbors and live out their lives hidden in the wilderness. And as they lived, they had children, sometimes with others like them, sometimes with those who did not carry their gift. The children born of such unions weren’t fully human, but neither were they lycanthropes. Over time a new race was born, neither human nor lycanthrope nor animal, but something of each. Shifters were strong, they were fast, and they were marked by the blood of beasts. Thick hair, sharp teeth, eyes that could see as well by night as by day—and a touch of their ancestors’ shapechanging abilities. Each shifter’s connection to his or her ancient heritage was different. Some, when they shifted, gained abear’s claws or a wolf’s fanged bite. Others gained speed or heightened senses.
    Geth’s gift was sheer toughness.
    The breath he had drawn hissed out between his teeth as the shifting passed through his body. His skin became tougher, his hair even thicker than it normally was. A sense of invincibility burned like hot steel in his veins and muscles, lending a sharp clarity to the night. With a grim smile, he sank back into a defensive posture, ready for the attack.
    His black-clad pursuers must have recognized that their quarry was through running. They reappeared, the first dropping like a spider from high on a wall into the street below. The others followed until there were eight of them, silently watching Geth, every one crouched and as ready to fight as he was.
    And not one of them stood any taller than his waist. Tiny dark eyes watched him from parchment-skinned faces that had been stained as black as their clothes.
    His pursuers were goblins.
    Another warrior might have forgotten his fear and fallen on the goblins with a foolhardy bravado, but Geth had seen what groups of the little creatures working together were capable of. Numbers always gave an advantage. Some of the goblins also had daggers drawn, the short blades smeared with something dark. Poison. Another advantage. The first goblin to reappear gestured, and all of the goblins began to creep forward.
    But Geth had an advantage, too. His grim smile tightened. He raised his sword above his head so the goblins could see it, then snapped his arms wide, drawing the blade in a sharp, fluid motion. “Behold!” he shouted.
“Aram!”
    The word meant “wrath” in Goblin, and it was the name of the sword. Geth had carried the weapon out of the ghostly fortress of Jhegesh Dol where it had been lost for thousands of years. It was broader and heavier than any human sword, with one edge sharp and the other notched with deep serrations, the end not pointed but instead forked like a serpent’s tongue. The blade, forged from the rare metal byeshk, carried a deep purple sheen that almost seemed to consume the moonlight rather than reflect it. Wrathwas a hobgoblin sword, created in the time of the ancient Empire of Dhakaan by one of the empire’s greatest wizard-smiths. It was the sword with which Geth had slain Dah’mir, the mad dragon who had given his soul to the terrible Master of Silence.
    And it was a
lhesh shaarat
, a warlord’s blade, a weapon of kings and heroes. He’d been told that any descendant of Dhakaan—goblin, hobgoblin, or bugbear—recognized such a sword, and that anyone who dared to draw a
lhesh shaarat
proclaimed his power. Geth had drawn Wrath once to fight off a gang of goblins. The mere sight of the twilight blade had sent the whole lot of them fleeing in startled terror.
    The black-clad goblins stopped their advance and stared at the ancient weapon—then looked back to Geth without any change in