She stood alone. Aruget was gone.
Six hobgoblins on horseback burst out of the darkness, swords drawn, the hooves of their mounts sending up sprays of water. They came to stop in a semi-circle around her, trapping her against the gates. One of them walked his horse forward a little and pointed his sword at her.
He didn’t have to say anything. Wet, shivering, and unarmed, Ashi crumpled the paper in her hand as she raised her head to meet his gaze.
“Geth.” Hands shook him hard. “Geth, wake up! There are horsemen outside.”
Sleep burned away like shadows in the sun. Geth opened his eyes and sat up. Tenquis’s workshop spun around him for a moment as his mind made the leap from drowsing to alertness. He’d fallen asleep in a big stuffed chair. The workshop was still brightly lit. Tenquis was still dressed. The table where they had eaten earlier in the day was now carefully laid with the tools for tomb breaking.
And the sound of rain was overwhelmed by the clatter of hooves.
Geth jumped up. He still wore his great gauntlet, though Wrath had been laid aside. He seized it. The blade seemed alert and happy, ready for its chosen hero’s moment of glory. He cursed the ancient sword. “How late is it?” he asked Tenquis.
“Most of the way through the second watch, I think.” The tiefling dashed around his workshop with quick movements, stuffing papers and trinkets into the pockets of his long embroidered vest. His tail lashed furiously. “This is Tariic, isn’t it? He figured you out-or someone gave you away.”
Geth didn’t answer that. Outside, hoofbeats had given way to footsteps. He pointed at the tool-covered table. “Get rid of those!”
Tenquis leaped to the table. His eyes flicked over it and he added a few more things to his pockets-then took up a heavy steel pry bar and jabbed it into an inner pocket of his vest as well. The massive shaft slid out of sight without even shifting the fabric. Tenquis gripped the collar of his vest, whispered a word, and the labyrinthine pattern of embroidery that decorated the garment seemed to writhe. Any hint of bulging pockets vanished. “Safe,” Tenquis hissed between his teeth, then he seized the edge of the table and heaved, overturning it and sending the remaining tools skittering across the floor in an anonymous jumble.
The crash brought an exclamation from those outside-and a command to attack. “Get out one of the back windows!” Geth shouted at Tenquis.
“They don’t open!”
The twin doors of the old barn burst in a shower of splinters under the shoulders of two big bugbears. Geth roared and charged to meet them, sweeping Wrath ahead of him. The twilight blade tore into the flesh of one of the bugbears, but the other managed to duck aside. A hairy fist wrapped in rings of scarred brass punched at him. Geth snapped up his gauntlet and brass screeched across black steel. Geth kicked the bugbear’s shins and followed up with another swing of Wrath that forced the Darguul to jump back.
But more soldiers were pushing through the door, and hobgoblin hands were tearing at the shutters over the front windows of the barn. Geth saw Tenquis bare his teeth and snatch a slim wand from a workbench. Shifting to one side of the fight, he flicked the wand with one hand and, with the other, dashed the contents of a tiny vial into the air. Pale liquid leaped like something alive, flying farther than it should have and splashing in a ragged line under the windows and before the door. Thick greenish vapors rose up from it, a smoky curtain that brought shrieks of pain from the hobgoblins who thrust arms and faces through the broken windows.
“Paaldaask!” someone shouted. Spellcaster!
Four hobgoblins had made it through the door before Tenquis’s curtain had risen. Two charged for the tiefling while the other two moved warily to aid the bugbears menacing Geth. The shifter growled and made a low feint at the bugbear he’d wounded before. The soldier stumbled back, getting in the way of one of the hobgoblins, and Geth turned the feint into a whirling attack that brought him up inside the reach of the other bugbear. His armored fist drove hard into the Darguul’s gut. The bugbear wore a heavy leather jerkin but the blow still doubled him over and sent him reeling.
Geth stayed with him, pressing the attack. His foot came down on something hard and round-one of the spilled tools from the overturned table. Already pulled off balance by the swinging weight of Wrath, he staggered.
The doubled-over bugbear lunged at him, big arms spread wide. Geth tried to twist out of the way, but the bugbear crashed into him and slammed him to the floor. Wrath flew from his hand. Instantly, the other soldiers were on him as well. They all carried clubs or weighted saps and didn’t hesitate to mix their blows with hard kicks. Geth tried to ward them off with a sweep of his gauntlet, but a bugbear caught his arm and held it back.
Geth caught a glimpse of Tenquis, wand stripped from his grasp and struggling with his own assailants, before a well-placed blow from a leather-wrapped club set his ears ringing and dark spots dancing before his eyes. Waves of nausea rolled through him, and he barely felt the pain as both arms were jerked behind his back and bound.
The door of the lhesh’s chambers opened, and Daavn, dripping water onto the rich carpets, strode in. “Geth and Ashi are captured, along with the tiefling artificer,” he said. “We found no sign of Aruget. He may have fled in shame.”
“He doesn’t matter.” Tariic sat in a vast chair, fully dressed in spite of the hour. “Geth and Ashi are the ones I wanted. Especially Geth. Did he have the rod?”
“He wasn’t carrying it. I searched the tiefling’s workshop, but I couldn’t find it. I have guards standing watch over the place, ready for you.” Daavn paused and added. “You don’t have to search yourself, Tariic. You’re the lhesh. There are soldiers I trust, clever goblins-”
“No!” Tariic sat forward and his voice cracked like a whip. “I will search for the Rod of Kings. It’s mine. No one else is to so much as touch it.”
Daavn flinched, then ducked his head. “Mazo, lhesh.”
Tariic sat back in his chair. He glanced at Makka-and Makka glanced down at the prisoner he held by one shoulder.
Midian was pale, with crusted blood on his mouth and one eye swollen, but his voice was bold. “We had a deal.”
Rage burned in Makka’s gut. He squeezed and Midian squirmed. He squeezed harder, and the gnome gasped.
Pradoor, seated again on the spindly carved table she favored as a perch, gave him a poke with her stick. He glared at her, then at Tariic. Pradoor might not have been able to see him, but Tariic could-and the lhesh didn’t even blink. Makka eased his grip. Midian slumped a little but Makka held him upright. “I swore an oath of vengeance,” he growled. “Will you ever let me keep it?”
“My needs come before yours. Let the royal historian go.”
Daavn started at the title and his mouth dropped open. Makka gave Midian another hard squeeze, then lifted his hand. For a moment, the gnome stood like a startled deer, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. Then his little pink slip of a tongue darted out and licked his bloodied lips. “Thank you, lhesh. I promise, you won’t regret this.”
“You betrayed me and then your friends, Midian,” Tariic said coolly. “You’re an opportunistic little rodent, but don’t think you can dig your burrow a third time.”
Midian gave a wretched, scraping bow. “Never. Lhesh, when you came to me and said you were looking for a scholar to join your uncle’s search for the Rod of Kings-”
“Strange,” said Tariic, “I seem to recall that you came to me looking for a way to get into Darguun so you could pursue your research.” He rose so that he towered over the gnome. “I’ll be watching you. Remember that you’ve already had your chance to run but that you chose to bargain for a chance to stay.”
“I’m yours, lhesh!” He scuttled out of the room.
Daavn found his voice. “Tariic, I don’t like this.”