The tyranny of ghosts

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

13 Vult

When the shrieks and howls of hunting varags had broken over the Khraal the previous afternoon, Midian had looked to Makka and asked, “Is there anything in this bloody jungle besides Geth and the others that would bring out that many varags?”

Makka had grinned at him. “Us.”

Whatever the shifter and his group had done to provoke the varags’ hunt-and Midian had a feeling it wouldn’t have taken much-it had left the way clear for the pair of them to follow without fear. Every varag in the area seemed to have been drawn into the chase. They’d found the Dhakaani road, and even the need to track their quarry had been eliminated. When Makka had offered prayers of thanks to the Fury, Midian had been almost tempted to join in.

Then dusk had come and with it a terrible wail like nothing Midian had ever heard before. Moments later, Makka had frozen for an instant, ears cocked, then leaped for the nearest tree and climbed it like a squirrel. Midian hadn’t stopped to ask why, but simply followed the bugbear’s lead.

He’d barely reached a hidden branch before a flood of frightened varags came pouring along the road and through the undergrowth.

When they’d passed, he and Makka had descended and continued on their way. More wails had drifted through the darkening jungle. The barren hill and its crown of ruins at the end of the road had been a surprise, but not much of one. They’d known their elusive prey was heading somewhere.

“Do we follow them in?” Makka asked, eyeing the ruins under the moonlight.

Yet another wail rolled out. “I don’t think so,” Midian had said. “They’ll come out again-or they won’t.” He found a comfortable perch in a tree with a good view of the ruins and settled in to wait, with Makka crouched below.

After that, it was just a matter of patience.

Geth acted without thinking, roaring and swinging Wrath in a flashing arc. The byeshk blade jerked in his hand as it hit the black tentacle that held Tooth, but smashed through it with a crack like splitting stone.

The cut tentacle collapsed into a long line of glittering black dust.

Tooth didn’t stop screaming, though. Ekhaas’s voice joined his, shouting at him to stay still. Geth spun around. Ekhaas had the bugbear’s arm in her grasp, struggling to hold it immobile as she beat at something black and squirming on his forearm. For an instant, Geth couldn’t help but wonder how Tooth had come to have a swarm of tiny insects on his arm-then he realized what the black stuff really was. Just like the rest of the tentacle, the end that had grabbed Tooth had turned into dust.

But it hadn’t stopped moving or released the hunter. The dust curled around his hairy arm as if it were a single unit, sifting back together where Ekhaas tried to scrub it away. None of it clung to her fingers. The curling thread flowed under Tooth’s skin through a bloody hole made by the sharp tip of the tentacle.

“I can’t move my fingers! By Balinor, just kill me. Kill me!” Tooth shrieked, and Geth remembered the skeletons with bones of glittering black stone. He clenched his teeth and made a decision.

“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 had faded into the background of Geth’s awareness rose again with shocking, angry clarity. The shifter sprang to his feet and vaulted up to the top of an unsteady wall. Back toward the center of Suud Anshaar, a column of dust had risen in the moonlight.

Had risen and was being sucked back down. Geth cursed and leaped to the ground. “We don’t have time for anything,” he said. Ekhaas nodded and tried to return the disk to Tenquis, but the tiefling was already sealing the pockets of his vest again. She stuffed it into a large pouch at her belt. Geth hurried over to Tooth. The hunter’s eyes were open, though clouded with pain and staring in the direction of the wail.

Geth ducked under his arm and heaved him to his feet again. “Ready for another run?” he asked.

“Geth,” Tooth said weakly, “you saved-”

The shifter bared his teeth. “Don’t thank me yet.”

They set off at the fastest pace Tooth could manage, which wasn’t very fast to begin with and rapidly grew slower. The hunter’s breath was a hard rasping; Geth felt the rise and fall of Tooth’s chest against his side. The hunter’s face was hard with determination though. A rock turned under his feet, and the bandaged remains of his arm banged into an age-pocked column. His face turned pale instantly, but he didn’t cry out.

“Just keep going,” Geth urged him and started watching the ground ahead with greater care, trying to put the wails that echoed through the ruins out of his mind.

Ekhaas and Tenquis strode to either side of them-Chetiin had run ahead once more. Ekhaas looked back frequently, then finally said, “I think I could stop it again.”

“No,” said Geth flatly.

“I know a spell that makes the ground slippery. If I could cast it over a wide area, that construct wouldn’t be able to get any traction. It wouldn’t be able to move-”

“No!” Geth glanced up at her. “You took it by surprise. You can’t risk doing that a second time. I don’t want anyone getting within range of those tentacles again, unless we’re forced to stand and fight.”

Ekhaas’s ears flicked, but she nodded.

“Chetiin’s back,” said Tenquis.

Geth turned his head the other way and found the goblin emerging from a relatively clear path that might once have been a road within the fortress complex. “Tell me something good!” he called to him.

“You’re close,” said Chetiin, falling into step beside them. “You’ve covered more than half the distance from where we stopped.”

A wail from the pursuing construct broke the night, and in its aftermath, Geth thought he could hear the grinding of its movement. “How much ground do you think our friend has made up?”

“I saw it from on top of a wall on the way back. It’s found the spot where we stopped.”

Geth grimaced. Chetiin shook his head. “It’s worse. The varags are back. Marrow caught their scent.”

“Where are they?” asked Geth. “Have they figured out where we’re headed?”

“Marrow says it smells like they’re gathered over by the road where we entered. If we’d come back through the gates, they’d be waiting for us.”

“Grandfather Rat’s naked tail,” Geth muttered. He hadn’t thought much beyond escaping Suud Anshaar and the black construct, but returning to the road and getting out of varag territory had definitely been in his mind.

“Stay downwind of them,” wheezed Tooth. “Varags track by scent.”

His words turned into a ragged gasp. “Save your breath,” said Geth. “It’s going to be a race to get out of here. Ekhaas, can you sing that traveling song again?”

The duur’kala looked at Tooth draped over Geth’s shoulder, and shook her head. “I don’t think Tooth would be able to take the strain.”

Geth cursed under his breath. At his side, Tooth struggled to speak again. Geth could guess what he was trying to say. “No,” he told the bugbear, “we’re not leaving you. You’re staying with us.”

“No,” Tooth managed, but any further words were lost in a gurgle of pain as Tenquis forced himself under the bandaged stump of the bugbear’s arm.

“Sorry, Tooth,” Tenquis said between his teeth. His arm wrapped across Tooth’s broad back, overlapping Geth’s. He looked around the hunter’s body at Geth. “If we’re going to move faster, someone needs to help you.”

“It’s not going to work. Without an arm across your shoulders-”

Tenquis glared at him. “Do you have a better idea?”

He didn’t. Geth shut his mouth and tried to ignore Tooth’s moans of pain as he and Tenquis hurried him along. He caught a whisper of song and glimpsed Ekhaas’s hand reach up from behind to stroke the bugbear’s head. His whimpering eased.

“He still feels it,” she said, “but it’s distant and more manageable. Just be careful with him.”

“We’ll be as careful as we can,” Tenquis said.

The tiefling was already breathing hard and struggling to keep his grip on Tooth’s torso. Geth took a good grip on the arm that was draped across his shoulders, then shifted his hand on Tooth’s back and grabbed Tenquis’s arm. “Hold mine,” he ordered. He couldn’t see Tenquis around Tooth, but he felt his rough, thick-nailed hand clamp around his forearm. He squeezed. Tenquis squeezed back.

Chetiin kept himself a few paces ahead of them, hopping frequently up onto mounds and low walls to look both ahead and behind. Geth didn’t like the way he was starting to look behind more often than ahead. He knew for certain that he could hear the grinding of the construct’s advance. “How are we doing, Chetiin?” he asked.

“It’s going to be close,” Chetiin said tersely.

Ekhaas looked up at him. “Is the construct following our path?”

He nodded-and Geth saw Ekhaas spin around and dart back. “Ekhaas!” he shouted after her. “Don’t!”

His sudden twist threw Tenquis off balance. “Careful!” the tiefling yelped, and for a moment all of Geth’s attention was on keeping himself and Tooth upright.

When he looked up again, he saw the outer wall of Suud Anshaar ahead, a wide gap in its dark length shining like a beacon in the moonlight.

Ekhaas’s song rose up somewhere behind them. A wail from the thing that pursued them rose to greet it.

He ground his teeth together and made for the wall. Chetiin dropped down and ran ahead of them. Ekhaas’s song faded — and a moment later, footsteps came racing up behind them. Geth stared as Ekhaas slowed to a quick walk alongside him. She flicked her ears.

“I didn’t get close,” she said before he could speak. “I just put an obstacle in its path.”

A new note of confusion and fury entered the construct’s wail. Geth heard the crash of stones and imagined the thing struggling to advance on ground that was suddenly slippery. “How long will the spell hold it back?” he asked.

“That depends on how long it takes for it figure out it can go around-”

The wail stopped. Ekhaas cursed. Geth guessed that she’d bought them maybe fifteen or twenty extra paces. He hoped it was enough. The ground between them and the wall was blessedly clear of rubble. He moved as quickly as he dared. Tenquis matched his pace. The gap in the wall drew closer… closer…

The wail burst out again. Geth turned his head just a little and saw a tentacle-crowned head rise above a mound. Stones fell and walls toppled in the construct’s wake as it sped forward.

“Watch your feet!” said Ekhaas. Loose rubble filled the base of the gap. Geth clambered up onto it, dragging Tooth with him. Tenquis followed. Ekhaas put a shoulder against Tooth’s lower back and pushed. The bugbear stumbled and fell. Geth cursed.

“Lift!” he ordered. He released Tenquis’s arm and flipped Tooth around so that he could get his hands under his shoulders. Tenquis and Ekhaas took the hunter’s legs and together they staggered to the top of the rubble heap.

The construct surged into the open space before the wall. Moonlight flashed on its glittering hide and the sharp tips of its stone tentacles. Its grinding and its wails merged into a single horrible noise. Geth’s stomach rose. They were on the downward slope of the rubble, just barely beyond the walls. Even if the construct was bound to Suud Anshaar, those tentacles could still reach them.

“Keep moving.” A small, lithe form darted past him. Chetiin raced up the rubble, up the broken edge of the wall, to prance before the construct. “Here!” he shouted as best as his strained voice would allow. “Here!”

Geth forced himself to keep moving, step after step away from the wall. “A little farther,” he growled, “a little farther.” He spoke encouragement to Ekhaas and Tenquis, but he knew in his gut that he was really talking to himself. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the scene above as Chetiin bounced and danced, making a target of himself.

And the construct took the bait. It struck like a snake, whipping its entire body forward. Tentacles stabbed at Chetiin. The old goblin tumbled over one, whirled past another, ducked under a third, and spun back to face the construct-just as a fourth tentacle lanced directly at him. Geth’s breath caught.

The tentacle chipped and skittered against stone. Chetiin was simply… gone.

A heartbeat later, he burst out of the shadows at the base of the ruined wall and came racing down the hill. Silence fell on the night. Stomach churning, Geth looked back up at the ruin.

The construct filled the gap, staring down at them, its tentacles calmed to a sluggish, almost inaudible writhing. Then, with an inhuman abruptness, it turned and slithered away as if it knew it couldn’t reach them and that they were therefore unworthy of its attention.

Geth eased Tooth to the ground, then sank down into a squat himself. It took a long moment before he could do anything but suck in great gulps of the hot night air. Finally he looked up Chetiin. “How-?” he asked.

“A secret of the shaarat’khesh,” Chetiin said. For the first time Geth could remember, Chetiin sounded winded. “Although that isn’t exactly the way it’s normally used.”

A shadow broke away from the dark line of the jungle’s edge and came trotting toward them across the barren hill. Marrow gave a soft, excited yip. Chetiin smiled. “The varags are running!” he said. “It sounds like whatever rage they worked up to come back and try to ambush us didn’t survive actually getting a look at the construct. I don’t think they’ll be coming near the ruins again any time soon.”

“Thank the sorcerer-kings,” groaned Tenquis.

Geth took another deep breath, then stood up. Or tried to. The muscles in his legs spasmed as he rose, and he almost fell over before he found Tenquis’s shoulder for support. His arms and hands were trembling too-but then again, they’d all risen early that morning, hiked through jungle, fought and fled from the varags, then fled again from the construct of Suud Anshaar. It was small wonder he was trembling and exhausted. And it was probably a good thing the varags had run away. He couldn’t have managed more than a dozen strokes with Wrath before the sword fell from his hands.

“Geth?” asked Ekhaas.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. He glanced around at the others. They all looked as tired as he felt, even Marrow. His lips twitched and he smiled, then laughed. Tenquis turned to stare at him.

“Have you snapped?” he asked.

Geth shook his head, pushed away from the tiefling, and wiped at his eyes with hands that were sticky with blood and dust. “Before we went into the ruins, I asked Tooth if he’d want to sleep here.” He nodded toward the jungle. “Let’s get under cover, then find a place to rest. Even if that construct starts wailing again, I’m going to sleep like the dead.”

The heat of sunlight on his face drew Geth slowly back toward wakefulness in the little clearing they’d found in the jungle. Vague memories of dreams clung to him-skeletal black serpents that chased after him while notched disks rolled across the night sky in place of moons. He shook the memories off, rising into a place of calm and well-being, where Ekhaas sang lullabies that shook buildings to ruins, Chetiin rode Marrow through shadows, and Tooth swung his grinders with both hands. They’d escaped Suud Anshaar. The varags had fled. It was good. He tried to will himself back down into sleep.

“Geth.”

Sleep evaded him. Tenquis was there, mouthing words that Geth couldn’t quite hear. Geth tried to answer, but his words wouldn’t come out either.

“Geth, wake up.”

Tenquis slid away. A shadow passed between Geth and the sun. Something cold burned across his throat. Adolan’s collar? No, it was too thin. Too sharp. He felt a sickening sensation of danger.

Any sense of calm vanished. His eyes opened wide to sunlight filtered through the canopy of the jungle. Instantly a hand pressed against his forehead. “Move,” said a rich, calm voice from somewhere above his head, “and you’ll cut your own throat.”

Sudden waking blurred his thoughts. He knew that voice, but it was so utterly out of place that he couldn’t identify it. He knew it was telling the truth, though. The cold at his throat was the edge of a knife. Geth forced his body to lie still and rolled his eyes back as far as he could to try and see who held him.

Midian Mit Davandi leaned into his field of vision. “Good morning,” he said.