The hide covering the door flipped back and Orshok stepped into the hut. “Wait, and tell us all,” the young druid said in his thick accent. He nodded at Geth’s clothes. “If you feel well enough to walk, get dressed and come with me.”
There was apprehension on Orshok’s face. Geth scrambled to his feet and pulled on his clothes quickly. “I feel fine, tak to you,” he said. “What happened? I remember Dah’mir casting a spell on me-and then waking up in your boat.”
“You stumbled into the water,” Orshok told him. “The Servant of Madness must have thought you were already dead. I was close enough to go back and pull you both to safety.”
“Then twice tak-that’s two times you saved me,” said Geth as he pulled his vest on over his shirt. “What were you doing in Zarash’ak anyway? When you saved me from the chuul, you said you were only supposed to be watching the house.”
“My teacher had a vision that the Servant would go to Zarash’ak and sent me to watch what he did there.” Orshok’s gray-green skin flushed dark. “When I saw that you were in danger, my hatred for the cults of the Dragon Below moved me more than my teacher’s instructions. I couldn’t stand by any longer.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Geth nodded to the door of the hut. “Tak to your teacher as well. You said curing me was beyond your skill. Was she the one who broke the disease?”
The young druid looked confused. Natrac said something briefly in Orc and Orshok’s eyes widened-then narrowed. “Meega was only tending to you, Geth,” he said. “She isn’t my teacher-and it wasn’t my teacher who cured you.”
Geth paused in the act of buckling on his belt. The scabbard was empty, his Karrnathi sword lost in the water below Zarash’ak, but the pouch on the belt’s other side was still intact. His great-gauntlet was sitting on the chest where the rest of his clothes had been. It would need some time to check the straps and plates-he had already decided to leave it for now.
“Who cured me then?” he asked Orshok.
A loud voice shouted from outside in Orc. Geth caught Orshok’s name, but didn’t understand the rest. The voice’s owner didn’t sound pleased, though. Orshok shouted back and glanced at both Geth and Natrac. He threw back the hide covering on the hut’s door.
The village of Fat Tusk stood on a low rise that pushed up from the reeds of the marsh, a flat hill that was large enough to hold a half dozen small huts and one large longhouse. In the twilight of the day, orcs were stirring-drawing water, preparing food, washing, even praying. In front of the longhouse, a handful of squat-bodied orc children tussled and screamed at each other. Closer to hand, however, three big adult orcs stood around a blazing firepit, all of them watching the hut. Orshok called to them as he ducked through the doorway. Their eyes narrowed slightly as Geth emerged.
But they grew even narrower a moment later, and the face of the biggest of the three screwed up into a glower. Geth glanced over his shoulder to see Natrac stepping out of the hut. Orshok’s voice took on a frustrated tone, but the biggest orc spat a few harsh words over top of him. Natrac flushed. Geth leaned close to him as they approached the fire. “What did he say?”
“Keep the half-breed back, I’m through speaking with it,” translated Natrac. His eyes flashed in the firelight. “Full-blooded orcs don’t always take kindly to half-orcs.”
The apprehension that had been in Orshok’s face was quickly turning into anger. “Geth,” he said, “meet Krepis. The druid who cured you.”
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.