It wasn’t without risks, but it was the only plan they’d come up with that met all of their needs.

“I’m willing,” she said.

“So am I,” said Ashi.

Dagii nodded his agreement.

Geth opened his hands. “We’ll do it. So we need to find an artificer we can trust and who can create a replica of the rod in five days before the end of the games.”

“Four days,” Ekhaas said. “We’ve lost a day now. I’ll take care of that-of all of us, I can move around Rhukaan Draal without attracting attention.”

“Move fast.” Geth leaned his head back against the wall behind his chair. “Grandfather Rat’s naked tail. This could actually work.” He looked at Midian. “You’re brilliant.”

The gnome’s smile flashed. “Say that again. I don’t get tired of hearing it.”

The wound in Makka’s side was an agony. He’d tried to staunch the bleeding, but every movement tore the wound open again. Blood matted the thick hair of his body and left a spattering of big drops on the ground wherever he stopped.

When the wolf had savaged his arm on the mountainside, he’d been in familiar territory and-for a short time at least-among friends. There had been someone with sure hands to bandage the wound. There had been herbs to treat it. Rhukaan Draal was strange and alien. There were no allies. Makka had tried to find a healer, but everyone he’d demanded aid from had fled.

When he staggered and fell against the wall of a building, he knew the wound was too deep. This was the end of him-the end of his search for vengeance. The jackals of this accursed city would circle him, and when he was dead they would strip the flesh from his bones. He felt along the wall until the building became an ally. He slipped into the cool shadows, found shelter behind an abandoned cart, and lay down to wait.

Memories and dreams came to him. Hunting deer at dusk in the mountains. Feasting on liver cut fresh from the steaming carcass. Gorging on hot, dripping meat roasted over a fire. Creeping up behind Ashi of Deneith and plunging her bright sword through her belly, laughing as she turned in astonishment to face her killer, as he wrenched the sword sideways to tear through her flesh. Catching Ekhaas the duur’kala and cutting the tongue from her mouth, then using her mewling cries to lure Dagii of Mur Talaan. Stringing him up like a deer and butchering his still living flesh, blood falling with a drip-drip-drip — tap-tap-tap. Slow shuffle of feet. Tap-tap, shuffle again. Tap- tap-tap-tap-tap.

Makka opened his eyes. Full darkness had fallen, though not yet the darkness of death. The constant noise of Rhukaan Draal was a din in the distance.

An elderly goblin woman made her way along the alley, tapping before her with a stick. After feeling in front of her with the stick, she would slide forward a few steps and repeat the procedure. Her old eyes were milky white.

The stick found the cart and she came around it.

“Go away,” growled Makka. She moved to the other wall of the alley but kept coming. “I said, go away!”

Her answer was a thin chuckle. Makka snarled and lashed out at her. He still had strength in his arm, if not in his body. The attempted blow pulled him off balance and he sprawled to the side. His weight fell against the cart, sending it rolling forward a short distance with the protesting squeal of a rusted axle. Makka fell against the ground and lay there choking on a new burst of pain. His arm stretched out across the alley-the old golin’dar was just out of reach.

Her tapping stick encountered his hand, then rapped down hard across his hairy knuckles. “You have fallen,” the old woman said in a shrill voice. “One of the hunters lies wounded. The order of the world is reversed.”

“If you’re going to try and rob me, get on with it,” said Makka. “There’s still enough strength in these hands to drag you into the Keeper’s domain with me!”

Her chuckle turned into a cackling laugh. Makka roared and thrust himself forward, sliding on a slick of his own blood, ignoring the pain in his side. “By the Fury, you’ll meet the Keeper before I will-and by the Mockery, you’ll suffer more too!”

His push wasn’t quite enough. Somehow she was still just beyond his reach, though her cackle was dropping now. Her big ears cupped as if she was listening to something more than his threats and curses, and her wrinkled face creased in a thin smile.

“Oh, you would be a terror at your full strength!” Her stick rapped his knuckles again. He grabbed for her and missed again. Her smile grew tight. “You honor the old ways,” she said. “You wear the muu’kron.”

It was a statement, not a question. An eerie feeling penetrated Makka’s anger. How had the goblin known? She couldn’t have seen the six knotted cords on his belt. Had she guessed? There was too much confidence in her voice. His hands dropped and he pulled back a little bit.

“I wear the muu’kron,” he said.

“You call on the Dark Six. The Keeper. The Fury. The Mockery.” She paused and cocked her head. “The Devourer?”

“When thunder rolls and my belly is empty,” said Makka.

“The Shadow?”

He shivered. “I have little dealing with dark magic.”

“But you honor him?”

“I fear his power.”

The goblin tapped her stick against the ground. “That is as much as honoring him. And the Traveler?”

Makka’s hair rose as stories of the trickster god came creeping out of his childhood. Stories that told of how the Traveler had remained on Eberron after the age of creation, wandering the world to spread chaos and test the faithful, never appearing in the same guise twice. Stories rejected by the adult mind of a hunter that had no room for chance, but broke down on the edge of death. Makka looked at the old goblin woman with new eyes and a growing wariness.

His silence must have given away his thoughts. The golin’dar laughed. “You think I could be the Traveler? Your wounds must be bad! And yet surely the Traveler led me to you.”

Makka found his voice again. “Or the Mockery, to increase my torment.”

She laughed again, a sound like some night-hunting bird, and moved closer to settle down on her haunches. She was close enough to seize now, but Makka didn’t move. It wasn’t just because of the growing darkness that drained the strength from him. There was something odd in this fearless woman.

“I am Pradoor,” she said.

“Makka.” He didn’t add the name of his tribe, partly because he no longer had a tribe, partly because a strange sensation had fallen over him. He stood on a cliff. With one step, such things as tribes would no longer matter.

“You are called, Makka,” said Pradoor. “The change beloved of the Traveler is coming. Haruuc fled to the gods of the Sovereign Host in the belief that it would make Darguun strong, but only the strength of the old ways can make Darguun great. There will be a new lhesh, and he will respect the Six. The people still believe. The order of the world will be set right.”

Her blind eyes faced him. “You want revenge. The Dark Six-the Fury-will place it in your path. Serve me, and your strength will be greater than anything you had before. Refuse and die.”

The words were blunt. It wasn’t a threat, only the truth. “When the Six give a sign, only a fool ignores it,” Makka said. “I choose vengeance.”

“When the Six call, you have no choice.” Pradoor stretched out a gnarled hand-she was somehow even closer than he had thought-and stroked his head the way his mother had when he’d been a pup. “You are their instrument. The Keeper will not take you this night.”

Waves of fatigue and weakness washed over Makka. For a moment, he thought that Pradoor was wrong, that the Keeper had claimed him, then fatigue and weakness were both gone. He trembled, as if just recovering from a long and terrible fever, but the fire of the wound in his side had cooled. He stood up and pulled apart the gap that Ashi’s sword had made in his bear hide vest. The skin beneath was crusted in dried blood, but the wound had closed, leaving a tender pink scar behind.

“Stare later,” said Pradoor. She poked her stick into his leg. “Up.”

Makka lifted her up to his left shoulder where she settled herself comfortably, one hand curled around the

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