A hand grabbed one of his arms while the weight of a body pinned his other. 'Geth! Easy!' called Natrac's voice. 'We're safe. Relax!'
Geth squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. The weight across him was the half-orc, though it took Geth another heartbeat to be certain. Natrac's face was drawn. The fine red coat and gray tunic he had worn on Vennet's ship were gone, probably too fouled to be salvaged. He wore rough leather clothes like those Orshok had: patched pants and a pale shirt with sleeves that ended just below his shoulders.
His right arm ended at the wrist. The burned and angry flesh had been replaced by skin that was still soft and smooth from magical healing.
The sight of Natrac's stump shocked him into relaxation. The pressure on his shoulders eased and the gruff voice grunted again-this time in approval. Geth twisted his head around to look up at the speaker. It was an old orc woman, her gray-green face deeply wrinkled and speckled with coarse white hairs, her tusks dull and yellow. In spite of her age, though, her limbs were thick with muscle. She patted his shoulders and said something else in what Geth guessed was Orc. Natrac answered her in the same language. The old woman patted Geth's shoulders again, then stood and stepped away from him.
Geth looked around. He lay on a low blanket-covered platform in a hut built from rushes and hides. The old woman picked up a shallow bowl from a packed dirt floor strewn with more rushes and waddled to a doorway that had been hung with a hide. When she brushed it aside, the red light of sunset flashed through.
'She'll fetch Orshok,' said Natrac. He rolled off Geth. 'How do you feel?'
The shifter lay back, taking stock of his body. 'Good,' he answered after a moment. He was slightly weak and ravenously hungry. There was an ache in his chest, but the pain was spiritual rather than physical, the aftermath of the fevered dreams that had ravaged him. He drew a long, shuddering breath against the images-some half- remembered delusions, some all too real-and sat up.
He was naked under the blankets except for Adolan's collar of stones. Natrac reached out and grabbed his clothes from on top of a chest. They looked and smelled like they had been washed. There was the sour odor of illness in the air, though. Geth's skin felt damp and he realized abruptly that the old orc had been washing him. He looked up Natrac.
'Where are we? How long have I been sick?'
'We're in an orc village called Fat Tusk,' the half-orc told him. He sat back, his amputated arm cradled in his lap. 'From what Orshok tells me, it's been five nights since you tried to rescue me from Vennet and the cult-and he ended up rescuing both of us from someone he'll only describe as the 'Servant of Madness.''
'Dah'mir,' Geth growled. 'Five nights? Rat, Natrac! Do you remember what we told you about Dah'mir and the Bonetree clan?'
Natrac grimaced and thrust the stump of his arm forward. 'Dagga, I remember,' he said.
Geth flushed and words stumbled on his tongue. 'Natrac, you shouldn't have gotten caught up in this. Vennet was using you as bait. He drugged you on the ship to keep you quiet, then when we discovered he followed the Dragon Below and escaped-' His fists knotted in his clothes. 'I can't make it up to you.'
The half-orc waved away his apology-or tried to. There was no hand for him gesture with. His face twisted in frustration and anger. 'You came for me, Geth. What more could I have asked for?' His remaining hand curled tight. 'But by Dol Dorn's mighty fist, I swear that Vennet is going to wish he killed me outright! That bastard should have known better than to leave me alive!'
There was a hardness to Natrac that he hadn't shown onboard Lightning on Water. The facade of the blustering merchant had been stripped away to reveal a raw fire underneath. It would have taken a lot more than just bluster, Geth realized, to deal with the thugs Natrac had brought onboard Vennet's ship. He wondered what the half-orc had done in his younger days.
'I'll stand with you, Natrac,' he promised. 'There's a lot that Vennet needs to answer for.'
He held out a fist. Natrac bashed his fist against it, knuckle to knuckle. 'Kuv dagga!' he said in harsh agreement. He looked at Geth. 'Singe only told us part of your story on the ship. I've told Orshok what I know, but there's more to it. What did Singe leave out?'
The hide covering the door flipped back and Orshok stepped into the hut. 'Wait, and tell us all,' the young druid said in his thick accent. He nodded at Geth's clothes. 'If you feel well enough to walk, get dressed and come with me.'
There was apprehension on Orshok's face. Geth scrambled to his feet and pulled on his clothes quickly. 'I feel fine, tak to you,' he said. 'What happened? I remember Dah'mir casting a spell on me-and then waking up in your boat.'
'You stumbled into the water,' Orshok told him. 'The Servant of Madness must have thought you were already dead. I was close enough to go back and pull you both to safety.'
'Then twice tak-that's two times you saved me,' said Geth as he pulled his vest on over his shirt. 'What were you doing in Zarash'ak anyway? When you saved me from the chuul, you said you were only supposed to be watching the house.'
'My teacher had a vision that the Servant would go to Zarash'ak and sent me to watch what he did there.' Orshok's gray-green skin flushed dark. 'When I saw that you were in danger, my hatred for the cults of the Dragon Below moved me more than my teacher's instructions. I couldn't stand by any longer.'
'I'm glad you didn't.' Geth nodded to the door of the hut. 'Tak to your teacher as well. You said curing me was beyond your skill. Was she the one who broke the disease?'
The young druid looked confused. Natrac said something briefly in Orc and Orshok's eyes widened-then narrowed. 'Meega was only tending to you, Geth,' he said. 'She isn't my teacher-and it wasn't my teacher who cured you.'
Geth paused in the act of buckling on his belt. The scabbard was empty, his Karrnathi sword lost in the water below Zarash'ak, but the pouch on the belt's other side was still intact. His great-gauntlet was sitting on the chest where the rest of his clothes had been. It would need some time to check the straps and plates-he had already decided to leave it for now.
'Who cured me then?' he asked Orshok.
A loud voice shouted from outside in Orc. Geth caught Orshok's name, but didn't understand the rest. The voice's owner didn't sound pleased, though. Orshok shouted back and glanced at both Geth and Natrac. He threw back the hide covering on the hut's door.
The village of Fat Tusk stood on a low rise that pushed up from the reeds of the marsh, a flat hill that was large enough to hold a half dozen small huts and one large longhouse. In the twilight of the day, orcs were stirring- drawing water, preparing food, washing, even praying. In front of the longhouse, a handful of squat-bodied orc children tussled and screamed at each other. Closer to hand, however, three big adult orcs stood around a blazing firepit, all of them watching the hut. Orshok called to them as he ducked through the doorway. Their eyes narrowed slightly as Geth emerged.
But they grew even narrower a moment later, and the face of the biggest of the three screwed up into a glower. Geth glanced over his shoulder to see Natrac stepping out of the hut. Orshok's voice took on a frustrated tone, but the biggest orc spat a few harsh words over top of him. Natrac flushed. Geth leaned close to him as they approached the fire. 'What did he say?'
'Keep the half-breed back, I'm through speaking with it,' translated Natrac. His eyes flashed in the firelight. 'Full-blooded orcs don't always take kindly to half-orcs.'
The apprehension that had been in Orshok's face was quickly turning into anger. 'Geth,' he said, 'meet Krepis. The druid who cured you.'
Geth stepped into the circle of firelight and studied Krepis-just as the orc was studying him. Krepis stood at least the width of a hand above everyone else around the fire. His shoulders were broader and his features heavier as well. The teeth of a crocodile were strung around his neck, six white points gleaming on either side of a larger disc of red-stained wood. He looked like he was about Geth's own age, older than Orshok, but definitely younger than Natrac. Geth bit back anger at his dismissal of the half-orc and glanced at Orshok.
'How do I say tak to him in Orc?' he asked.
'I talk you language,' Krepis grunted before Orshok could answer. His accent was even thicker than the younger orc's. His voice was arrogant. He slapped his chest. 'You talk to me!'
Geth looked him straight in the eye. 'Then tak, Krepis,' he said with all the respect he could muster. He bent his head. 'Tak for curing me.'
