Don Bassingthwaite - Word of traitors

And from above him dropped Chetiin, breaking away from the cavern wall like some great spider. His feet struck the crossbow and forced it from Midian’s grip. His hands caught the lip of the crack in which the gnome perched and his body curved back up so that his ankles hooked together behind Midian’s neck.

Midian threw himself back into the crack, dragging Chetiin with him. He’d taken a dagger from the cache he’d hidden in the tunnel. If he could draw it… but Chetiin didn’t give him a chance. The goblin’s speed and strength belied his age. He wormed around Midian and grappled with him, a primal struggle in the dark, cramped tunnel.

There was no room to maneuver. Midian glanced back to the mouth of the crack, glowing with the light of the moonstone, and kicked toward it. Maybe Chetiin had the same idea because he kicked, too.

They burst out into the open space of the cavern as if spat out of the mouth of some huge beast. Even as they fell, though, they pushed themselves apart. Midian twisted his body in mid-air and hit the cave floor in a springy crouch that absorbed the impact of the fall.

So did Chetiin.

They drew daggers at the same moment and circled each other briefly. Then Midian leaped.

Chetiin caught him with one hand, guiding him in a sweeping arc, but Midian grabbed the goblin’s arm in return and held tight. The momentum of his body dragged Chetiin off his feet and they both crashed into piled plates of silver and gold. In an instant they were rolling and wrestling, Midian with bared teeth, Chetiin with flattened ears.

Midian didn’t hold back or offer mercy. He knew Chetiin wouldn’t. Their business would be finished here.

Geth saw his opening. He sprinted across the tomb, past Haruuc’s staring eyeless face, and dived into the pile of rolled carpets, digging among them until his fingers touched stiff leather. He closed them and wrenched out the leather tube that he had seen the false Chetiin take from his quarters.

There was a weight to the tube that he knew well, but he’d been tricked one too many times. Fingers fumbling with the clasp on the tube, Geth opened it just a bit.

The dim light of the moonstone-broken by the struggling shadows of Midian and Chetiin-flashed on a shaft of purple byeshk, thick as his wrist, carved with ancient symbols. A touch of his hand to Wrath confirmed it. This was the Rod of Kings. The true rod.

“I have it!” he shouted. He pushed himself to his feet and dashed back across the cavern, closing the clasp again as he went. Midian let out a howl of frustration-that turned into a howl of pain. Geth resisted the temptation to turn and see who was winning the fight. He ran for the stairs, racing up them with Tenquis following close behind.

He was about halfway up, the light of day glowing in the tomb door and a strange thrumming roar growing in his ears, when something big, heavy, and hairy dropped on him.

There was no chance to think what it was or where it came from. Geth had a brief sense of something falling on him, then he was crushed flat against the stairs. His breath exploded out of his mouth. The ribs he’d broken in his dive out of Khaar Mbar’ost cracked again in a sharp burst of pain rivaled only by the blossom of fire that bloomed when his head bounced off the stone steps. He heard Tenquis yell, but the sound seemed very far away.

The leather tube jerked out of his hand. A massive, wide-shouldered figure blotted out the daylight as it bounded up the stairs.

“Geth!” Hands grabbed him and turned him over. Tenquis’s face spun above him. Geth couldn’t quite focus on him. He couldn’t quite breathe either. His body heaved with the effort of it. Tenquis cursed and dug in a pocket, coming out with a little leather flask that he opened, stuck under Geth’s nose, and squeezed.

Acrid orange dust puffed up into Geth’s vision. It tickled his nose, burned his eyes, and somehow opened up his throat. He gasped and air rushed into his lungs. His head stopped spinning, though it still throbbed mercilessly. “What happened?” he asked.

Tenquis was already trying to drag him to his feet. “Makka! He must have braced himself between the walls of the passage. Geth, he has the rod!”

That, more than the orange dust, cleared Geth’s head.

“No.” Fighting back the pain in his side and his head, he thrust himself up the stairs. He twisted his head around as he ran to shout back into the tomb. “Chetiin! Makka’s stolen the rod!”

He staggered out of the tomb door just in time to see the bugbear snatch Pradoor up from where she stood chanting and vault into the saddle of a terrified horse. He wheeled the horse once and his eyes met Geth’s, then he spurred the beast along the road back into Rhukaan Draal.

3 Aryth

Horror mingled with rage in Geth’s gut and he latched onto the edge of the stone doorway to hold himself up. Tenquis, coming up behind him, grabbed his shoulder.

“Look there!” Tenquis pointed at a vast cloud of locusts that swarmed along the ridge.

Even as Geth turned his head, the cloud dissipated, the thrum of wings fading as fast as Pradoor’s chant. Some of the insects flew away, others dropped to the ground like a brown hail around the trio of bloodied figures that huddled at its heart. Geth’s fear surged again-then the figures stirred and Ashi, Ekhaas, and Aruget looked down at him.

“The rod?” called Ekhaas, her voice raw.

Geth pointed at Makka’s retreating horse.

“They have it?” Ashi asked. “After all that, they have the rod?”

Grim determination settled over Geth. “Makka has it, not Tariic,” he said. “We still have a chance to stop him.”

The other horses, calmer now that the locusts had gone, were still picketed. Geth let go of the doorway and moved for the stairs down to the ground-and would have pitched over if Tenquis hadn’t been there to catch him. The tiefling lowered him to the ground and pulled more flasks out of his pockets.

Geth pushed at him. Every moment they lingered Makka got closer to Khaar Mbar’ost. “There isn’t time for this!”

“You can’t stop him if you can’t walk,” Tenquis said.

“Listen to him, Geth. Tapaat te nuusha ka koor te hara-bind your wounds or bleed out your victory.”

Geth turned his head to see Chetiin climbing the stairs from the tomb. The goblin was bleeding himself. Long scratches tore the parchment-like skin of his face and a blood-soaked black sleeve clung to one arm. Far more astonishing, though, was the sight of Midian draped over the shaarat’khesh’s shoulder-limp and unconscious.

Chetiin answered Geth’s question before he spoke it. “This tomb was built for Haruuc, not his killer.” He dropped Midian. The gnome fell heavily, groaning as he hit the ground. Chetiin drew the dagger that had killed Haruuc and the blue-black crystal set in the ugly blade glittered. “Traitors die on the doorsteps of heroes.”

A desperate idea came to Geth. “Wait!” he said. “Don’t kill him.”

Chetiin and Tenquis both froze, the tiefling with surprise on his face, the goblin with cupped ears. Ashi, descending the ridge alongside Ekhaas and Aruget, cursed. Up close, Geth could see that the bloody appearance of the three came from dozens of tiny bites.

“Are you serious?” Ashi demanded as she slid down the last of the slope to land before the tomb.

“Yes.” Geth looked to Tenquis who held a flask motionless in one hand and a small heap of shimmering powders in the other. “Finish that,” he said, pointing at Midian, “then get out your orange dust and wake him up. Chetiin, do you know where his crossbow is?”

The goblin’s eyes narrowed and he gave a curt nod.

“Get it,” said Geth.