had both of his grinders ready. Thirty paces… twenty… ten…
A varag shrieked with triumph directly behind him. The sound was like a knife. Geth clenched his teeth and whirled, lashing out with Wrath even before he’d locked eyes on his enemy. A lucky strike-the twilight blade slashed across an outstretched arm. It caught on bone, pulling the varag off balance and dragging a scream of pain from the creature. There were more varags close behind though. Geth met their howls with a roar of defiance and raised Wrath again. Somewhere at his back, Tenquis shouted his name Roar, howl, scream, and shout were all lost in the wail that rolled through the gathering night. There was an eternity of agony in that wail. It was high and weirdly echoing, the tones of it clashing with every other sound like the edge of a blade scraping against armor. It sent a shiver along Geth’s back and raised every hair on his neck and arms. Conflicting instincts fought inside him-turn and face the source, or flee instantly without looking back.
The varags’ howls turned to short-lived screeches. They slid to a stop, claws digging into the ground and scrabbling across stones. The creatures seemed to freeze for a moment-then the wail came again and they were turning as fast as they could, fleeing silent back into the night. Even the one Geth had wounded and the one Ekhaas’s song-conjured dust had blinded fled as best as they were able, stumbling and hobbling, mewling like pups.
The wail faded and did not come again.
Geth turned around slowly. The others were standing and staring silently up the road beyond the jungle wall. Without speaking, Geth went to join them.
Suud Anshaar-there could be no doubting the identity of the ruins that rose above them like a crown set on top of a low hill. The bloody light of the setting sun washed over the ancient fortress, and for a moment Geth could imagine it had been constructed not of stone, but bones. The ruined walls had the curve of hips and femurs, the fragmented towers the broken appearance of ribs, cracked and smashed to extract the marrow. On the surrounding slope lay massive tumbled stones, fallen over time from the hilltop and rolled downhill by their own weight, as if they sought to escape this haunted place.
Just as he’d seen while running, no trees adorned the naked ruins, only a few hardy vines and dry, scrubby bushes. Even those faded before they got anywhere near the broken walls of the fortress.
“The wail,” he asked Ekhaas quietly, “a ghost? Many ghosts?”
“I don’t know what it was. It doesn’t matter.” Her ears went back, and her jaw tightened. “We’re going in.”
Geth looked to Tooth. “Do you want to wait for us here?”
The bugbear’s eyes flicked between the bony ruins and the dense fringe of the jungle. “Maybe I’ll wait under the walls instead.”
This time, Geth couldn’t help smiling as they followed Ekhaas up the last stretch of ancient road.
CHAPTER TWELVE
27 Aryth
Tariic’s summons came more than a week after Senen’s mutilation and exile. Ashi had been expecting it, and she told herself that it was just coincidence that it came at a time when Oraan was not her guard. Tariic couldn’t know the changeling’s identity-could he?
Woshaar was the guard who delivered her to the throne room of Khaar Mbar’ost. He saluted his lhesh, then retreated. The great door of the chamber, a titanic slab of dark wood, slid down behind him, sealing Ashi in.
Tariic looked down on her from the blocky throne of Darguun, the Rod of Kings in his hand, a look of distaste on his face. “You’re a scab, Ashi. You itch, you’re ugly, and I want to tear you off and be rid of you.”
She remembered the first time she’d entered the throne room. It had been her and Vounn’s formal presentation to Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor. The hall had been crowded with Darguun’s warlords and clan chiefs, the walls hung with banners depicting their many crests. It had been night, and a mantle of shadows, emphasized rather than dispelled by scattered everbright lanterns, had rendered Haruuc powerful, proud, majestic, and mysterious.
Tariic had chosen to summon her by day. The sunlight that streamed through the tall windows behind the throne glowed around him-his presence was blinding. There were no warlords or emissaries today, only Pradoor beside him on the dais and his three deaf-mute bugbear guards to the side.
The crests of the clans, Ashi realized, had been removed. The only banner that remained showed the black silhouette of a spiky crown above a purple bar. The crown of Darguun over the Rod of Kings. The symbol Tariic had taken as his own.
Ashi raised her chin and met Tariic’s gaze. For the last week, Tariic’s actions and Midian’s parting words-a surprise visit to some old friends-had eaten at her, yet without Senen’s aid, she’d had no way of warning Geth and Ekhaas that the gnome was on their trail. Oraan had kept her in her chambers, partly to avoid additional suspicion from Tariic, partly, she was certain, to give her rage time to cool. It hadn’t.
“If I’m a scab,” she said, “that makes you a bleeding wound.”
Tariic’s ears went back. He slammed the rod down onto the arm of the throne. “I am lhesh! You owe me respect!”
Ashi didn’t flinch. “I owe you nothing,” she said. She raised her hands, letting the sunlight flash on the silver wrist cuffs. “Feel free to take back these beautiful trinkets, if you want.”
His ears went back even farther, and he hissed a word between his teeth. The bracelets grew chill, then cold. Ashi kept her face hard and her eyes fixed on Tariic. If Oraan had been there, she knew, he would have counseled patience, a smile, dissembling words. Senen and Vounn would have done the same, but where had dissembling gotten them?
The skin around the cuffs turned white. Pain tingled in Ashi’s fingertips and climbed her arms. She kept her eyes on Tariic even as cold tears blurred her vision. When she could taste ice in the back of her mouth, she finally bent her head.
“Atcha’rhu,” she said in Goblin. Your honor is great. It was a fight to keep her voice from trembling.
Tariic smiled benevolently and whispered again. The cold ebbed immediately. The fire in Ashi’s belly only burned hotter. “You are merciful, lhesh,” she said.
The bite of the comment seemed lost on Tariic, but maybe he believed he was. He sat back and gestured with the rod. “I have questions,” he said. It was a command, not a request, but Ashi spread her aching hands in silent invitation. Tariic snapped his fingers. “Pradoor.”
The old goblin priestess crouched down beside the throne. Craning her neck, Ashi could see that a rough arc of symbols had been drawn on the floor around her. Pradoor reached out and, with a certainty that was eerily at odds with her clouded eyes, let a handful of powder sift over coals in a metal bowl. Smoke rose around. Pradoor breathed it in and began chanting the words of a prayer calling on the gods of the Dark Six to separate lies from truth. Ashi felt Pradoor’s magic brush against her, a sensation like questing hands on her mind.
They found no grip, though-the power of her dragonmark protected her against more than just Tariic’s commands. While it shielded her, her mind was a blank page to all forms of divination and magical domination. Tariic had underestimated her. The fire in her belly grew a little more.
Pradoor didn’t seem to notice anything amiss in her spell. The chant faded. “Ask your questions, lhesh,” she croaked.
Tariic’s gaze hadn’t turned from Ashi. “How long have you known Geth and the others were in Volaar Draal?”
She thought quickly. “I found out when you did-when Senen confirmed it.” She let hate fill her voice, disguising the secret triumph she felt.
“Nu kuur doovol,” said Pradoor. “She speaks the truth.”
Tariic’s eyes narrowed. “Does she?”
Ashi wrinkled her nose and spat, “I do! How was I supposed to find out, Tariic? I haven’t had any contact with Senen. Your guards saw to that.”
“She speaks the truth.”
“Senen sang messages to Volaar Draal,” said Tariic. “If she could do that, she could sing a message
