“Who do you serve?” asked Pradoor’s voice.
“I serve the Six,” Makka said.
“How do you serve?”
“With steel.” More. Understanding rose up inside him. “With steel and faith, and a will to bring the old ways back to the dar!”
“Who is your patron?”
He knew the answer. It throbbed with the beating of his heart and raced through him with all of life’s ecstasy. He saw it before his eyes. The calm that had guided him through the day vanished in a wave of frenzy. He drew the knife that had been an offering to the Six from his belt and pushed the tip against his chest, carving what he saw into his flesh. “The Fury,” he roared. “I belong to the Fury and her power belongs to me!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
23 Sypheros
'Geth.”
The call intruded on Geth’s sleeping mind, and it seemed to him that he had been hearing it for quite some time. It came again. “Geth.”
He curled more tightly under his blankets.
“Geth!” The speaker, his voice strained and thick, sounded irritated. Something flicked Geth’s nose.
Awareness, if not alertness, burst over him like a war wizard’s spell over a battlefield. He moved by instinct. A figure stood close to him and he punched at it in the same movement that brought him out of bed. The figure simply tumbled away, landing in a crouch on the sill of the open window. Geth dropped into a defensive stance, hands and arms raised, shocked mind calculating how he could reach Wrath before his attacker came at him again Recognition intruded on the rush of battle. The figure on the window sill was Chetiin. The goblin watched him with careful intensity in his black eyes. The sky behind him was gray with dawn. Geth shook his head and lowered his hands. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“That’s why I tried to wake you from a distance first,” said Chetiin. He reached down to the back of a chair below the window and tossed Geth’s pants to him. “Cover yourself.”
Geth struggled into the pants, swaying as the dizziness of sudden waking crashed down on him. “I thought you might have come sooner.”
“Sneaking into Khaar Mbar’ost isn’t easy.” The shaarat’khesh elder looked at him. “You summoned me. You need to talk?”
Over the afternoon and evening of the day before, Geth had worked out what he would say to Chetiin. How he would describe the misgivings and shameful suspicions he’d had as smoothly as Ekhaas might have. Sleep, however, had stolen the words from him. “I…” he bumbled, then clenched his teeth and said simply, “I doubted you. I’m sorry. I’ve seen the ledge-”
Chetiin shook his head. “Don’t speak of it,” he said. “Just tell me that wasn’t the only reason I climbed up here.”
“You climbed?” Geth went over to the window and peered past him. His window was easily seven or eight floors up. Khaar Mbar’ost was far shorter than even a minor tower in the city of Sharn, but it was still tall enough. There was nothing under his window except a drop to the stones of the plaza around the fortress. He looked at Chetiin with new respect.
The goblin just shrugged casually. “It was the easiest way to reach you. Now talk. Is it something about the war?”
“Have you learned anything more about who attacked you?”
“No.” Chetiin’s ears twitched. “And that troubles me. If no one has stepped forward to claim the assassination by now, they may never come forward. They may not be able to. Whoever hired them may have betrayed them.”
“Midian.”
“If he could betray Haruuc, he could betray a hired assassin.”
“We are talking about someone who tried to kill you, Chetiin.”
“Who breaks muut with one member of the Silent Clans breaks muut with all of us, Geth.” The muscles of his jaw tightened. “And if the true assassin is dead, I can’t clear my name. I convinced you, but I doubt I could convince others. Volaar kapaa’taat kesha do haan-the word of traitors is written on air.”
“We could vouch for you,” Geth said.
Chetiin shook his head. “And reveal the secret of the rod? I don’t think so. My honor may become a sacriice.”
It was as good an opening as he was going to get. Geth took a breath and pushed out the idea that had prompted him to hang the blanket from his window. “If you’re not having any luck tracking down the assassin, maybe there’s something else you can do,” he said. “I’d like you to go to war with Dagii and Ekhaas.”
He didn’t think he’d ever seen Chetiin look surprised. The expression survived only moments on the goblin’s wrinkled face, though, then it was gone. “Why?” he asked.
“I want to be certain they make it back. I don’t think I’ll be able to deal with the Rod of Kings on my own.”
Chetiin looked past him. Geth turned and followed his gaze to the small chest that rested on-or rather was bolted to the top of-a heavy table. The chest was bound in iron and had three magewrought locks, the keys to which hung around Geth’s neck. There were other defenses, too, invisible to his eyes, but Ekhaas assured him they were there. In truth, though, Geth didn’t see the chest as protecting the rod from others so much as protecting others from the rod.
“You’ve done well so far,” said Chetiin.
“And the switch with the false rod should be easy,” Geth continued for him. “No, it’s after that I’m worried about. I won’t be Haruuc’s shava any more. I want Ekhaas and Dagii-and you-here to help me and Ashi.” He echoed what Ashi had said. “Our group is being broken up. We need to stay together.”
Chetiin looked at him for a long moment. “Ekhaas and Dagii are capable. They can take care of themselves,” he said. “If I go, only you and Ashi will be here. I don’t think Midian can be trusted.”
“Neither do I. He still doesn’t know we’ve figured him out, but if we have to deal with him after the false rod is in the hands of the new lhesh, he may guess. That’s why I need you to make sure Dagii and Ekhaas make it back. War isn’t predictable. I want someone watching over them.”
Chetiin’s ears twitched. “You trust me.”
“I do now.”
Chetiin actually smiled. “That pleases me. I’ll go.” His smile jerked a little higher on one side. “It isn’t often that one of the shaarat’khesh is asked to protect lives rather than take them.”
“I’m not used to sending other people out to fight in my place,” said Geth with a grunt. “I’m surprised Wrath hasn’t pushed me to go myself.”
“Fighting isn’t always the hero’s part,” Chetiin said. He twisted around and swung his legs out the window, then nodded toward the glowing horizon. “The last day of Haruuc’s games. The beginning of the end. Good luck, Geth.”
“Rat and Tiger dance for you, Chetiin.” Geth leaned out and watched the goblin start his climb down the wall of Khaar Mbar’ost like some big shadowy spider.
The end began as Haruuc’s funeral had begun-with a procession.
At first there was little to see from where Ekhaas sat in the stands of the arena, but she could hear the waves of cheering that accompanied the progress of the procession through Rhukaan Draal. It was like listening to the approach of a violent storm. The excited murmur of those lucky enough to have found a place in the arena itself-and there wasn’t a spare place to be had, even among the sections reserved for dignitaries-was wind in storm-tossed trees. The blurred susurrus grew louder and louder until the storm was upon them. One pair of the arena’s great gates opened and lightning might have struck. The roar of the crowd was thunder.
