She drew a deep breath and met Geth’s eyes over his sword. “Will you strike down an ally who can turn the coming battle in your favor?”
Geth ground his teeth together. His sword trembled. “You? Yes,” he growled. “We brought the same warning you did. The Gatekeepers know about the danger from the Master of Silence. If you die, the horde will still march!”
Medala lifted her head. “But will it march in time?”
Her fearless, arrogant face brought out all of Geth’s fury at being forced to stand and talk with a woman who deserved to be dead. Wrath snapped back and flashed forward.
Ekhaas’s sword flashed as well. In less than a heartbeat, she drew the weapon and thrust it forward-across Wrath. Though the two swords had been forged thousands of years apart, they were both of Dhakaani design, with one edge smooth and the other jagged. The jagged edges locked, and Ekhaas forced Geth’s killing blow aside.
“Kravait!” she barked in Goblin. With Wrath in his hand, Geth understood the command. “Stand down now!”
It was hard thing not to pull his sword free and strike again, but he managed it. Ekhaas thought more quickly than he did. The words that might have been Medala’s last rolled in the pit of his stomach. He stared at Medala. “What are you talking about? Why does it matter when the horde marches?”
The mad kalashtar hadn’t moved. Her expression hadn’t even changed. “Batul claims to see the future, but his gift is weak. I’ve seen the future too, but I looked on it with both eyes. When I said that Virikhad’s struggles to take control of me flung us into a place that was elsewhere, I kept some secrets to myself. Time moved differently in the place that he took us. We saw things there while we struggled. Events. Possibilities. Certainties.”
The pupils of Medala’s eyes had shrunk as if she stared into a bright light, and they seemed fixed on something very far in the distance. Her voice was soft. Geth felt the pressure from Ekhaas’s sword ease as she let her weapon fall away, but he didn’t try to raise Wrath again. He just listened.
“We saw,” she said, “Dah’mir’s wounding at your hand. We saw his weakness and his escape, your fear and your escape. Not everything was clear to us-only the entwined paths of those we hated. We saw when you and Dah’mir came together in Zarash’ak, but not what happened when you parted. We saw what happened in Taruuzh Kraat after a fashion. We saw Dah’mir’s seizing of the ancient binding stones. We saw the power of the dragonmark break Dah’mir’s hold on Dandra. We saw him flee, and we knew that he fled to Sharn-but that was when our struggled ended, and I was returned to the Bonetree mound.”
Pin-prick eyes shifted to focus on him. “All those things were possibilities that became certainties, but there were more possibilities that remained and three that I saw most clear. First, that my enemies would meet Dah’mir in Sharn. Second, that my enemies would meet me in this place, the Sharvat Vvaraak. Third-” She blinked and stopped.
“What?” asked Geth. “What was third?”
Medala looked at him. Her pupils had resumed a normal size and when she spoke, her voice was once again as harsh as sand. “Third, that Dah’mir might return to the Master of Silence.”
“Might?”
“It is a possibility. All of these things are possibilities-or were. You met me here and that possibility became a certainty. I know from your story that Singe and Dandra went to Sharn, so that possibility has become a certainty as well.”
Geth felt like someone had grabbed hold of his spine and was stretching it. “What about the third possibility?”
“It hasn’t happened yet, but of all the things I saw, I know when it will happen.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “In the possibility I see, the blue moon is full and bright on the horizon at dusk.”
The blue moon-the moon of Rhaan, so small it might almost have been a pale azure star. Geth struggled trying to guess when it would be full again, but Ekhaas came up with the answer first. “Eight days from now,” she said.
Medala opened her eyes and nodded. “It will be Rhaan’s first fullness since I returned. The horde must be at the Bonetree mound when it rises.”
“Do the Gatekeepers know this?” Geth demanded.
Medala looked at him coldly. “They don’t need to know,” she said. “It would distract them. The horde will be there. I created it. It is mine.” A hand jerked up to touch her face. “These are the angry eyes!”
“What about Sharn?” Ekhaas asked. “What if Singe and Dandra stop Dah’mir there?”
Medala cocked her head. “Dah’mir would not return to the Master of Silence if he failed. He will find what he seeks in Sharn. He will not be stopped. Anyone who stands against him will die.”
“You can’t know that.” The hand on Geth’s spine curled into a fist. “You said that Dah’mir’s return was still only a possibility.”
Medala’s lips twisted again-but this time they curved into a horrible smile. “He will not be stopped. The vengeance upon him will be mine.” Her eyes bored into Geth’s. “You should consider that yourself. We travel the same path for a time. You would be wise to stay on it.”
Her head rose sharply, as if at some distant noise, and after a moment, she rose to her feet. “Come with me,” she said. “You’ll want to see this.”
Wrath had come up the instant that she moved, but Medala walked right past Geth without even looking at the sword. He stared at her exposed back, then glanced at Ekhaas. Her amber eyes were narrow-and watching Medala’s thin back, as well.
We can end this, Geth thought. We know the danger now. One blow from either of us …
Medala paused in midstride. “It takes no power to know what an enemy with a sword and an easy target is thinking,” she said without turning, “Before you act, you would do well to ask yourselves if I have told you everything that I know. What might I have left out of my story? What will happen if I die now?” She took another calm step and passed out of the tent. Geth’s hand tightened on Wrath’s hilt, until his fingers ached.
“She’s right,” growled Ekhaas.
“Tiger’s blood! I know!” Geth let Wrath fall again and leaped after the kalashtar. She had stopped just outside the tent. Geth pulled up short at her side and stared around in amazement.
The camp was absolutely silent. Orcs drifted past them-alone, in pairs, or in bands-but none of them said anything or made any sound as they walked to the center of the camp and the Gatekeeper’s sweat lodge. Mugs of ale and gaeth’ad were left abandoned beside campfires. Food was left to burn on the flames. Geth followed the orcs’ eyes and stifled a curse. The pillar of smoke that had risen beside the sweat lodge had stopped. The fire had been extinguished.
The surface of the Sharvat Vvaraak was nearly perfectly level. He could see nothing beyond the nearest ranks of tents except the humped peak of the lodge. One of the tall standing stones that he had spied when they arrived in the camp was nearby though. He sheathed Wrath and sprinted to it. The surface was worn nearly smooth with time, but there were crevices and nooks enough for a shifter to scale. The metal of his gauntlet scraping on rock, he swarmed up the stone until he hugged its narrow top and could peer down over tents and orcs.
Hundreds of warriors gathered around the sweat lodge in silent expectation. The largest and most important among them jostled quietly for position close to the single enormous hide that covered the doorway of the lodge. Geth felt a flash of angry jealousy-he should have been there with them, a hero taking his rightful place among the mighty-but he shook his head sharply. The feeling was only some lingering echo of Medala’s power. He had a place fighting with the horde, but not blindly. For once in his life, he had to think, not just act.