“Ekhaas, stand clear,” he said.
The duur’kala looked up. Something of what he intended must have showed in his face, because her ears flicked up, and she stepped toward Tooth’s immobile hand, gripping it hard. Maybe Tooth saw it, too, because he tugged back the other way, probably more afraid than anything else. Between them, they pulled the arm straight-or at least as straight as was possible. The elbow no longer flexed.
Geth aimed higher as he brought Wrath down through skin and flesh and bone. No longer supported, Tooth staggered and fell, his scream finally ending. Blood gushed out of the stump of the bugbear’s arm. “Ekhaas! Tenquis! Try to stop the bleeding!” Geth ordered.
Ekhaas let the severed arm drop to the ground as she went to Tooth’s side. Geth knew the sound of falling limbs. He’d attended infirmary tents in the aftermath of battle. When a ruined limb had to be amputated, it fell with a meaty thump. It did not fall with a thud as if the bones within it were suddenly far heavier than they should have been. For a moment, Geth felt an urge to check the severed end, to see if the cut bone was white or black beneath the sheen of blood.
“Geth,” said Chetiin quietly, “look.” He pointed.
The thick line of dust that had been the tentacle was flowing back into the heap of rubble. Just beneath the sounds of Ekhaas’s healing song and Tenquis’s muttered words as he applied liquids and powders, Geth could hear a low sigh like running sand.
A sigh that grew into a slow grinding. He whirled around. “Get Tooth up! We need to get away from here.”
Tenquis looked up. His brown skin was ashen; his golden eyes seemed dulled. “The wound won’t stay closed. He needs bandages-”
“We’ll stop when no more tentacles can reach us.” He sheathed Wrath, squatted down, and slid his head and shoulders under Tooth’s remaining arm. The bugbear was groaning and only barely conscious. “Tooth,” Geth said as calmly as he could manage, “can you walk?”
Tooth’s head lolled in what Geth hoped was a nod. He stood up, taking most of Tooth’s weight, and started away from the rubble of the great hall. The hunter must have been at least a little bit aware of the danger-he managed to put one foot in front of the other.
“Chetiin, Marrow,” said Geth, “we need the fastest, easiest way out of here.”
“The gates are on the other side of Suud Anshaar,” Ekhaas pointed out.
“It’s a ruin. The gates are wherever there’s a hole in the wall. Chetiin, go!”
The old goblin nodded and darted into the shadows along with Marrow. Moments later, he reappeared atop a broken wall, waving them onward.
Behind Geth, a stone shifted and slid as the thing beneath the rubble started to struggle once more. Tenquis and Ekhaas glanced back, wand and sword raised. Geth didn’t look but just concentrated on the uneven ground ahead. “A little faster, Tooth?” he asked.
Tooth’s head lolled again.
An easy way through the ruins was impossible, but Chetiin and Marrow did their best, guiding them around the worst blockages. They moved faster, though, knowing that the worst danger of Suud Anshaar lay trapped behind them, at least temporarily. The stone skeletons held no more interest. Every muffled wail, every creak of stone brought a new clutching fear. Adolan’s collar of stones didn’t warm up in the slightest.
Tenquis stayed on Tooth’s other side, keeping an eye on the bugbear’s terrible wound. They’d covered perhaps half the distance to the outer wall when he hissed sharply and pressed an already bloody rag to the stump. “It’s open again. Geth, we need to stop and bandage it properly.”
Geth looked ahead, then behind. The rubble of the great hall was out of sight behind the broken base of a tower. He ground his teeth together. There was no point in having saved Tooth from the construct’s terrible power just to have him bleed to death. “Work fast,” he told Tenquis and guided Tooth to the shelter of a solid-looking patch of wall.
Not until he’d lowered Tooth into a seated position and had drawn away to allow Tenquis and Ekhaas room to work did he realize how much blood had poured down over his arm. The sleeve of his shirt was drenched. He snarled under his breath and tore the fabric away.
“You’ve stopped.” Chetiin’s voice came out of the shadows so suddenly that Geth jerked around and drew Wrath halfway before he stopped himself. He slammed the ancient sword back down.
“We’ll follow again as soon as Ekhaas and Tenquis have taken care of Tooth.”
“Take a longer rest if you need it. The way is easier from here.” The shaarat’khesh elder squatted down where he stood. Sharp eyes looked up at Geth from his parchment-skinned face. “You made the right choice,” he said.
“I hope Tooth agrees with you.” Geth settled down as well. “I couldn’t let him die like the people of Suud Anshaar.”
“I was thinking more that we’d need him to get out of the Khraal and back to Arthuun,” said Chetiin. “But even so, an arm in exchange for his life seems a reasonable bargain. And it will make his tale of a trip to Suud Anshaar that much more believable.” His smile was so thin that Geth couldn’t tell if he was trying to be lighthearted or simply stating the facts as he saw them.
Even that thin smile disappeared, though, as the goblin added, “What about the shaari’mal?”
Geth looked to Tenquis again as the tiefling folded a piece of clean cloth into a long bandage. “I don’t know. Wrath recognizes them.” He looked for the words to describe what he’d felt through the sword when the byeshk disks had been revealed. “Have you ever seen dogs from the same litter greet each other, even after they’ve been separated for years? It’s like that.”
“Perhaps Taruuzh forged more artifacts from the byeshk ore of Khaar Vanon,” said Chetiin.
“But everything we found pointed to the shattered pieces of the Shield of Nobles, even the inscription in the floor.” Geth rubbed his hands through his hair. “I don’t understand.”
Tenquis and Ekhaas rose from Tooth’s side and joined them. “We’ve done everything we can,” said Ekhaas. “He needs rest and a real healer. If we had the luxury, I’d say we should camp for the night, but he’ll last until we have a chance to stop again.”
“Then sit down for a rest yourself. We need it too.” Geth repeated what Chetiin had said about the way ahead, then glanced at Tenquis. “Let me see one of the disks.”
The tiefling nodded and whispered a word. The embroidered lines of his long vest shifted, the bulging pocket with the shaari’mal reappearing. Tenquis extracted one of them and passed it over. Geth weighed it in his hand, examining it closely. There was no sign that it had ever been part of a larger, shattered whole. The purple byeshk was heavier than might be expected, but Wrath was the same. The symbols carved into the disk were similar to those on Wrath too. There would have been no denying the relationship between them even if he hadn’t felt the sword’s sense of familiarity.
Maybe, he thought, there was a deeper similarity. The sword had a memory and a kind of awareness. The Rod of Kings certainly did. Maybe there was an awareness in the disk as well. He frowned and concentrated on it. Hello? he thought at it.
“What are you doing?” asked Tenquis.
He felt his face grow warm. “Trying to connect with it the same way I connect with Wrath,” he said. He shook his head. “I don’t feel anything, though.”
“You couldn’t feel anything when you held the Rod of Kings either,” Ekhaas reminded him. “Maybe Wrath blocks the shaari’mal the same way it does the rod.” She held out her hand. “Give it to me.”
He twitched it back. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Tariic only held the rod for a moment the first time, and he was lost to it.”
“I’ve already touched one of the shaari’mal,” said Ekhaas. “Before we got them out of the floor. I didn’t feel anything then, but maybe it needs more.”
Geth looked around at the others, then held out the byeshk disk. Ekhaas took it and wrapped her hands around its notched edge. Her face creased in concentration. A moment later, the creases grew deeper. Geth felt a flicker of worry. “Ekhaas?”
She opened her eyes. “Nothing.”
“There’s magic in the disks,” Tenquis said. “I know there is. If I had time to study-”
From the ruins behind them came a sudden crash, like a heap of rubble thrown aside. The muted wail that
