Don Bassinghtwaite - The Binding Stone

Geth stepped into the circle of firelight and studied Krepis-just as the orc was studying him. Krepis stood at least the width of a hand above everyone else around the fire. His shoulders were broader and his features heavier as well. The teeth of a crocodile were strung around his neck, six white points gleaming on either side of a larger disc of red-stained wood. He looked like he was about Geth's own age, older than Orshok, but definitely younger than Natrac. Geth bit back anger at his dismissal of the half-orc and glanced at Orshok.

"How do I say tak to him in Orc?" he asked.

"I talk you language," Krepis grunted before Orshok could answer. His accent was even thicker than the younger orc's. His voice was arrogant. He slapped his chest. "You talk to me!"

Geth looked him straight in the eye. "Then tak, Krepis," he said with all the respect he could muster. He bent his head. "Tak for curing me."

Krepis stood tall, puffing out his chest with pride-at least until Geth's shirt collar fell open as the shifter straightened. Krepis's eyes seemed to bulge and the orcs who stood with him stiffened. Krepis snapped at Orshok in Orc once again. The younger druid's face turned dark. Geth glanced at Natrac.

"He wants to know why you're still wearing the stones," the half-orc said.

Geth reached up to his open collar. His hand encountered the stones of Adolan's collar.

"Rat!" he hissed. He tugged his shirt closed again and stepped closer to Orshok. "What about the stones?" he asked. "How does Krepis know about them?"

"He saw them when he was breaking your fever," said Orshok. He had to try and squeeze his answer around Krepis's continued tirade. "They're sacred, a holy sign of our tradition. He wanted to take them away, but I wouldn't let him."

On all sides of them, the village had gone quiet as orcs watched and listened to the big druid. The more Krepis ranted, the darker Orshok flushed.

"Ignore him," he said, his voice strained. "Just tell us all what's going on."

Geth's eyes had narrowed, however. "Wait," he said. "Your tradition?" He reached up and put his fingers under the stones, holding the collar out boldly. "You're Gatekeepers?"

As Orshok nodded and Krepis sneered, it seemed to Geth that he could almost hear Adolan proudly recounting the history of his sect-telling how the Gatekeepers were first druids and how the first Gatekeepers had been orcs. Geth's hand fell away.

"The collar was given to me by a Gatekeeper," he said, "after a hunter of the Bonetree clan struck him down. His name was Adolan. He was the guardian of the Bull Hole in the Eldeen Reaches."

"Bull Hole?" Krepis spat. He jerked his head at Natrac. "Old half-breed told this story. I not hear of Bull Hole. Druids of Eldeen Reach fallen from old ways. Not Gatekeepers anymore."

Geth drew a harsh breath. "Adolan died because he was Gatekeeper!"

"Stones belong to true Gatekeepers!" Krepis grabbed for the wooden disk strung around his neck together with the crocodile teeth and held it up so Geth could see it. There was a symbol on this disk, a symbol identical to one of the symbols on Adolan's collar. "Belong to orcs. If druid of Eldeen had stones, must be stealing. Must be thief!"

Blood burned in Geth's cheeks. With a roar that echoed across marshes, he dove over the fire, hands grabbing for Krepis. His ancient heritage flooded him as he leaped-a feeling of invincibility surged in him. He slammed into Krepis, knocking the big orc flat to the ground.

"By Tiger's blood, you take that back!" he howled. Crouched on top of the orc, he twisted and drove a knee into Krepis's belly. "Adolan was as true to his faith as-"

Krepis got an arm free and hammered a punch straight up into Geth's jaw. The shifter shrugged it off, bared his teeth, and grabbed Krepis's thick arm with both hands, wrenching it hard. Krepis bellowed in pain.

Then the druid's cronies darted in and hauled Geth off him. Shifting might have made Geth tougher, but it didn't make him any stronger. He thrashed and fought as they tried to get a grip on him, lashing out with fist and foot against their grabbing hands. There was a rip as his shirt tore and for a moment Geth spun free-until Krepis rose up behind him and grabbed for him with both hands. Geth tried to twist away but Krepis's meaty fingers closed on the pouch at his side, yanking the shifter off balance. Geth fell heavily. The pouch tore open.

Dandra's psicrystal tumbled out and skittered across the ground, glittering yellow-green in the firelight. The eyes of one of the other orcs lit up with greed. He snatched at the shining crystal.

The instant that his hand clenched around it, his red eyes opened wide and his body stiffened. Geth gasped as a droning sound like a hundred, disembodied voices speaking at once pulsed on the air and the firepit exploded upward into a seething white pillar of flame. Krepis-all of the orcs in Fat Tusk-froze in terrified awe.

"Il-Yannah's light!" sobbed the orc clutching the psicrystal. His voice soared up into a crazed shriek. "A body! I have a body again!"

"Grandmother Wolf," breathed Geth. "Tetkashtai?"

The orc spun around. "You!" Tetkashtai raged through his tusked mouth. "Where's Dandra? What's happened to Dandra?" The disembodied chorus of her power throbbed. A shower of sparks burst out of the towering fire.

One of the memories that Dandra had shared with him and Singe flashed in Geth's mind: a vision of her hand closing on the yellow-green crystal in the darkness of Dah'mir's terrible laboratory, a rush of power as Tetkashtai exploded in her mind and the connection between kalashtar and crystal was restored.

He'd caught the crystal with his gauntlet and stuffed it straight into his pouch. He'd never touched the crystal, but Dandra had grasped it just as the orc had-with naked flesh. Tetkashtai didn't need Dandra. She could forge a connection with whoever held the crystal.

But even with Dandra's determined will to control her, Tetkashtai had been half-mad. Without that strength of mind…

Not even pausing to think, Geth lunged at the orc and grabbed his arm, twisting it hard enough to hear bones grind. The orc's voice rose in a high-pitched scream-that dropped into a deep shout as his fingers opened and the crystal fell to the dirt.

The fire sank down to glowing coals.

Geth thrust the orc away quickly and whipped off his belt, hastily sliding the pouch free. With trembling fingers, he turned it inside out like a clumsy mitten around his hand, then grabbed the crystal and tugged the pouch back up around it.

He could almost imagine that he heard a thin wail of despair from Tetkashtai as he pulled the drawstrings of the pouch closed. The orc village was utterly silent around him. Orshok and Natrac were staring at him in astonishment, Krepis in rage. For a long moment, no one moved, not even the orc children.

Then an orc rose from in front of one of the huts. He was old-the oldest person, Geth was certain, he'd ever seen in his life. He moved painfully and leaned heavily on a staff with a crooked end, much like the staff Orshok had carried in Zarash'ak. His hair and beard were pure white; his gray-green skin looked as fine and brittle as parchment. Everyone in the village turned to him as he hobbled forward.

He paused beside the orc-now whimpering and clutching his wrist-who had picked up the crystal. The old man batted his hand away and examined his wrist, then stretched out his fingers and murmured a word of nature's magic. The younger orc's breath caught in his throat and he gasped with relief. The old orc turned to look at Geth.

His left eye was as white as his beard, but his right eye was bright and alert. "You have a strong grip, shifter!" he said without any trace of an accent.

As if his words had opened a floodgate, sound rushed back into Fat Tusk. The orcs of the village clustered together to babble in amazement while both Orshok and Krepis converged on the old orc, each trying to talk over the other. The old orc's good eye, however, was fixed on Geth.