The varag hesitated, as if it could sense the change in him. As if it knew that he had become a little more like it. The creature paced back and forth, hunched over on three limbs, its nostrils flaring as it breathed in his scent. Geth peeled back his lips and snarled at it. The varag growled in return and came at him.
Geth leaped to meet it. They came together hard, but this time Geth caught the grinder on the back of Wrath. He twisted the twilight blade, and the deep teeth on the sword’s back caught the grinder, locking it in place. The varag howled and raked at him with the claws of its other hand, but all they did was add to the shreds that hung from Geth’s shirt and vest. Geth drew back his right arm, curled his gauntleted hand into a fist, and drove it hard into the varag’s face.
Bones crunched and the varag staggered back, blood welling up from the imprint of Geth’s knuckles. Geth didn’t let up. He stayed on top of the varag, holding the lock on its grinder, pounding away with his metal-encased fist. The thing’s howl of anger turned to one of pain and confusion. It let go of the grinder and turned to run.
Geth lunged and slashed with Wrath. The edge of the sword sliced into the meat of the varag’s leg. It folded instantly. The varag pitched forward, arms flailing. Geth didn’t give it a chance to recover. He struck hard and fast. Wrath bit deep into its shoulder and halfway through its neck.
A savage growl and a terrible, short scream brought him around, fear for his friends rising in him. The growl was Marrow, though, and the scream a varag-she had it on the ground, her massive jaws around its throat. As he watched, she twisted her head and ripped. The varag’s throat tore out in a spray of gore. Marrow threw her bloody muzzle back and howled her triumph.
Geth raised Wrath to the sky and howled with her.
Around Ekhaas and the others, the last two varags hesitated in their whirling, blurring attacks. One was already bleeding from a deep wound; the other bore the smoking scars of acidic fumes-one of Tenquis’s spells. Geth caught the glance that passed between them.
They were going to break, he realized, and if they ran, there would be no catching up to them. They would escape, and all the varags in the area would know there was two-legged prey to be had-if they didn’t already.
“Stop them!” he spat, but Tooth was already moving. With a stationary target, he swung his grinders as easily as if he were chopping jungle growth. The wounded varag was caught off guard. One arm came off at the elbow and went flying into the undergrowth. The other came off at the shoulder and hit the ground with a meaty thump. A third stroke of Tooth’s grinders took off the creature’s head.
The final varag turned and ran. Tenquis flicked his wand at it with one hand, hurling a small metal sphere with the other-in the same moment that Ekhaas’s voice rose in song.
The sphere burst against the varag’s back. Thin yellow-green vapors, churned by the dissonance of Ekhaas’s song, billowed up around the fleeing creature. The varag wailed, clapping hands to its ears while squeezing its eyes shut, but it was too late. It stumbled away from the vapors and crashed to its knees, then slumped over. Its hair was already curled and black from the acid, the skin underneath already burned raw. Blood trickled between the fingers that still clutched its ears.
“Four of them,” said Chetiin. “Four of them against six of us. They don’t hold back.”
“I told you they’re not afraid of anything,” Tooth said hoarsely. “We were lucky it was only four. Maabet, we’re in trouble. Other varags will find the corpses. They’ll track us. If we can get out of their territory, we might be safe.”
Geth grabbed his arm. “We can’t turn back now.”
“You saw how fast varags move. Once they start tracking you, there’s no outrunning them. Even leaving their territory may not stop them, but it gives us a chance. We can let them quiet down, then come back.”
“Then Suud Anshaar is safer,” said Ekhaas. “You said varags don’t go near it.”
“That only makes it safe from varags,” Tooth growled. He pulled free from Geth and pointed up the old Dhakaani road. “That will take you right to the Wailing Hill. Or at least it’s supposed to. We’ve got a deal. I’ll wait for you at the other end of the road at noon, when the varags are mostly asleep, for three days. If you don’t come back, I’m heading back to Arthuun.”
“You’ll be on your own,” Geth said.
“Might be better.” Tooth turned and started trotting down the road, moving with surprising silence for someone as big as he.
The sudden shrieks of varags from that direction-not close but not so distant either, and not hunting calls, but more like a pack skirmish-made him pause. Marrow growled something.
“She says,” called Chetiin, “that if she was hunting, she’d follow prey on its own before she followed prey in a group.”
Tooth looked down the road, then back up at them. “Blood,” he grumbled-then came back to them. “But I’m not going into the ruins, just waiting for you outside them.”
Geth could have smiled at that, but the knot of fear that the howls produced in his own belly wouldn’t let him. “Done,” he said and started along the old road again.
The others fell in alongside him. Tooth looked at Ekhaas and Tenquis. “Any magic you have that might slow them down would be helpful.”
The duur’kala and the artificer glanced at each other, then Ekhaas shook her head. “No,” she said, “but I can help us move faster.”
She started to sing again, the song low but rhythmic. The magic caught at Geth’s feet, strengthened his legs, and eased the breath in his throat. Soon they were moving at a running pace, even though they still seemed only to be walking. He wasn’t sure they’d be able to outrun varags if the creatures gave chase, but at least they wouldn’t be as easy to catch.
He kept Wrath in his hand and ready.
The sun had moved a double handspan across the sky when shrieks and howls broke out behind them. The varags had become more active as the heat of the day had passed and Geth had almost gotten used to the distant barks and short screams. The sound that rose from behind them was different, though. It was angry. It was vengeful. It was hungry.
Geth knew what it meant-and he knew he didn’t have to say it to the others. The bodies of the varags they’d fought had been found. In unspoken agreement, they all picked up their already magically enhanced pace. The angry howls faded, and the only sound on the thick, hot air was Ekhaas’s song. Slowly the jungle birds found their voices again, and soon her song blended into theirs.
Tooth looked grim. “They’ll hunt in silence now,” he said. “Some will come up the road behind. Others will come through the trees. Those are the ones we’ll have to watch out for.”
The growth around them had changed. They’d entered a region of tall trees with a thick canopy that shaded and stunted smaller plants. The landscape was more open, and they could see a greater distance into the jungle. If varags did approach them through the trees, they’d be able to see them coming-hopefully. Plants weren’t the only things on the jungle floor. Here and there, vine-choked ruins rose out of centuries’ worth of fallen vegetation. Crumbling walls, heaps of squared stones, the shapes of buildings, all of them with the familiar designs of Dhakaani style.
“Are we there?” Geth asked Tooth. “Is this Suud Anshaar?”
“No,” the bugbear said. “These ruins have no name. There are places like this everywhere in the Khraal. But we’re getting close. The land is rising.” He grimaced. “And the sun is setting.”
Geth looked up to the canopy. Under the gloom of the trees, it was easy to lose track of the day. The green-tinged bright spot that was the sun had actually vanished from among the leaves, dipping down below the branches to throw irregular beams of brightness among the tree trunks. Where the light failed, shadows were deep; where it penetrated, the brilliance was dazzling.
Something in the middle distance flickered across one of the bars of light.