“Then we’ll say nothing more about this until we reach Rhukaan Draal and I can raise the issue with Haruuc. He appears to be the one holding your reins. Good evening, Tariic. Ashi, come with me.” She turned and marched to the lightning rail cart. After a few paces, she looked back over her shoulder. “Ashi!”
Ashi’s face was split between a fierce anger and a frightened obedience. “Vounn, I want to stay. My friends-”
“Ashi,” Vounn said quietly, “it’s not too late to send you back to Karrlakton-and at this moment I am willing to suffer Haruuc’s displeasure by doing so. Come with me or you’ll be waiting for the next northbound coach.”
The color drained from Ashi’s face. Geth couldn’t have said whether it was because of anger or out of fear at being left behind. With a last longing glance at him and Ekhaas, Ashi went stalking off after Vounn.
“Maabet!” said Tariic under his breath. “That one’s going to be trouble.”
“A dragon like that deserves her own lair,” Chetiin told Geth. “You can sleep in the cart with the Silent Clans during the journey to Sterngate if you prefer.”
Geth blinked. “I haven’t said I’m going.”
“Aren’t you?”
Geth looked at Tariic and Ekhaas, both of them with their eyes now turned to him. He grimaced. “Grandfather Rat,” he said, “this hero thing is ridiculous.” He pointed after Ashi and Vounn. “I’m doing this for Ashi,” he said.
Ekhaas smiled.
Tariic nodded in satisfaction. “I don’t ask why,” he said. “That you’re doing it is enough for me. Go to sleep-we join the southbound coach in the morning.”
Chetiin nudged him toward the cart into which the other shaarat’khesh and taarka’khesh had disappeared. “Settle in,” he said. “Mind the tigers.”
Before they left the next morning, Geth sent a message by House Orien courier from the lightning rail station, directed to Singe and Dandra in Fairhaven and letting them know that he wouldn’t be meeting them as planned but was instead going to Darguun with Ekhaas and Ashi. Ekhaas couldn’t tell him how long Haruuc’s mysterious task might take-not because she wasn’t permitted to tell him but simply because she didn’t know. Geth had written, Will send word-watch for news of riots in Rhukaan Draal.
“That will put a twist in Singe’s britches,” he’d told the duur’kala.
The journey from Sigilstar to Sterngate took only two days, including stops at cities and towns along the way for the transfer of passengers and cargo-two days to whisk them across the remainder of Thrane and along nearly a third of the length of the kingdom of Breland before cutting directly across the country to its southern border. The miracle of the lightning rail never ceased to amaze Geth. Two days to cross half the width of the continent. It barely seemed like enough time for him to catch up with Ekhaas and Ashi, to hear about Ekhaas’s rise within the Kech Volaar and Ashi’s dire experiences under Vounn’s mentoring. For him to tell them about his first encounter with Chetiin and the other shaarat’khesh.
“They came after me down a dark street and backed me up against a wall,” he told the two women as the countryside sped past outside the windows of the cart. “Chetiin pulled out his dagger, and I thought I was in for a hard fight-until he stepped up and laid the dagger on the ground. He looked at me like I was a recruit on muster, then said in Goblin, ‘Ekhaas of the Word Bearers tells me that, with that sword in your hand, you can understand our speech. By her name, will you listen to what I have come to tell you?’”
He managed a passable imitation of Chetiin’s scarred voice that brought a faint smile from Ekhaas.
Ashi sat forward. “What happened?”
“You could have knocked me down with a Sharn sweet roll. But Chetiin didn’t go for his dagger again, and he had mentioned your name, so I said I’d listen. Have you noticed he always gets right to the point? He said Lhesh Haruuc needed the bearer of Wrath and asked me to come to Sigilstar with him and his people to meet Ekhaas and Tariic.”
“And you just went with him?”
Geth glowered at her. “I’m not stupid. He knew details from our time in the Shadow Marches that only Ekhaas could know, and he had a scroll with a message from Haruuc. He got my interest.” The shifter shrugged. “Besides, it was only a trip to Sigilstar. There was no hurry for me to get back to Dandra and Singe-and I wasn’t feeling welcome in Lathleer. It turned out that Chetiin had more of his people shadowing the locals who’d been looking for me. They distracted them, we got out of town with no problem, and joined up with the taarkakhesh who were waiting for us. After that, we just traveled across country.”
He shook his head in amazement. “I thought I could get a long way in a night, but shaarat’khesh and taarkakhesh can really move. We ran into a border patrol as we crossed from Aundair to Thrane, but I don’t think they even saw us. I don’t think anybody spotted us on the entire journey.”
“The Silent Clans know their craft,” said Ekhaas. “They’ve lived apart since ancient times, and they keep their secrets. Anyone can hire them with absolute confidence, but they teach their ways to no one. Haruuc paid a lot to have them fetch you.”
“Maybe not that much.” Geth looked around, then dropped his voice. “Chetiin and I spent time talking while we traveled. He wouldn’t tell me anything about why Haruuc wants to see me, but he’s interesting-I like him. Did you know his first contract was with Haruuc when Darguun was founded? They’re old friends.”
Ekhaas nodded. “I’m not surprised. The Silent Clans are reliable, but I know Haruuc wouldn’t have trusted just anyone to find you.”
The sun was only a handspan above the horizon when their coach pulled into the lightning rail station at Sterngate. Geth swung out of the cart and down to the platform to look out at a scene that reminded him more of his time as a mercenary during the Last War than it did of any of the other stations they’d stopped at.
Sterngate itself was a bulky fortress nestled into the foothills of the Seawall Mountains with only a scattering of buildings- the lightning rail station among them-outside it. Steep earth embankments and wide ditches made it impossible to approach the stopped coach from anywhere other than through the station. Geth could see similar arrangements of embankments and stone walls restricting access to the other buildings and even to the trade road that ran past the station and directly into the fortress.
“There’s more like this on the other side of Sterngate,” said Chetiin. Geth had stopped trying to keep track of the goblin. The goblin elder’s sparse hair was gray as cobwebs, and yet he still moved like a shadow.
“What’s it for?”
Chetiin gave him a rare smile. “To stop Darguuls from getting into Breland unannounced. Sterngate guards the western end of the Marguul Pass.”
With most southbound passengers on board for the gnome nation of Zilargo, there were few passengers boarding the coach to continue on from Sterngate. Even fewer were disembarking-the delegation of Darguuls were the only ones to come off the coach. As cargo was shifted, a squad of Brelish soldiers came marching out from the fortress to meet them. A lieutenant in a crisp uniform spoke with Tariic and checked papers. Geth was in no way surprised to discover that, aside from Chetiin, there was no sign at all of the goblins of the Silent Clans. It was as if they had simply vanished.
“How good is Sterngate at keeping Darguuls from getting into Breland?” he whispered to Chetiin.
“Good enough,” said Chetiin without seeming to move his lips. “Less good when it comes to the Silent Clans.”
Diplomatic status of the delegation confirmed, the soldiers marched back to the fortress. The delegation was left alone on the platform save for laboring porters and a single gnome who sat on a bench reading a small book bound in yellow silk. As the soldiers marched away, he glanced after them, then closed the book, hopped down from the bench, and sauntered over to look up at the Darguuls. Geth watched him. Startling blue eyes peered out of a long, sun-browned face made even longer by a shock of pale hair above and a curling patch of beard below. The gnome wore clothes that were dusty from travel and sturdy boots that had seen hard use.