“Who takes the ridge?” asked Geth.
Chetiin considered. “Ashi, Ekhaas, and Aruget. If they stay close to the wall, they should be able to get into the shelter of the ridge without attracting attention.”
Ashi peered out at the rough landscape. “I can do it.” Ekhaas and Aruget gave nods of agreement.
Geth turned-the movement bringing a tug and a grumble of complaint from Midian-to Tenquis. “You’ll be able to get the door open quickly and quietly?”
The bandaged stub of the tiefling’s tail waggled and his golden eyes narrowed with hate. “I’d rather have a long knifepoint conversation with Daavn,” he said, “but like Grandmother says, there’s more than one way to sour milk.” He gripped the collar of his vest and whispered a word. The embroidery of the vest writhed and the slight bulges of pockets reappeared. “I have everything I need.”
“Then we’re ready.” He looked to the others. “Rat and Tiger dance for us all.” He stretched out his hands to Ashi and Ekhaas-and felt his left brought up short by the rope tied to Midian’s wrist.
There was no grumble of complaint and Midian’s arm didn’t yield. Geth turned.
Midian squatted behind him, unmoving and apparently intent on something in his hand. The rope that should have been tied to his wrist seemed to pass completely through it. Ekhaas hissed and swept a foot across the ground where the gnome crouched.
And a glittering crystal disk no bigger than a coin bounced off the stone of the arch. Midian vanished. The rope was tied to a bar of the iron gate.
“Tiger, Wolf, and Rat, I thought we searched him!” Geth snarled. “Where is he?”
Ashi pointed. “There!”
The sun shone off a shock of pale hair, just visible above the long grass on the near side of the grazing horses. Midian moved with such stealth that the grass around him barely swayed. It was easy to guess where the Zil was going: his own secret way into the tomb. Maybe he was going to fetch the rod for them just as he’d said, but Geth doubted it.
“I could stop him,” said Chetiin.
“No.” Geth drew Wrath. “We’re in a race now. Ekhaas, Ashi, Aruget-go!”
“Wait. Let’s put honey in the trap.” Aruget grabbed Geth’s chin and turned his face toward him. He studied the shifter, then let him go. Hobgoblin features melted and reformed. Ears shrank and hair grew out. Small eyes become large and wide. In only moments, Geth stared at himself wearing Aruget’s armor. Aruget-Geth smiled and said in eerie mimicry of his growl, “Daavn will be more likely to chase a face he knows. Ko isn’t the only one who can imitate you.”
He jerked his head and he, Ashi, and Ekhaas stole out of the gate, moving along the low wall in the opposite direction to the way Midian had gone. They ran low and fast, heading for the nearest fold in the ridge. Geth realized he was holding his breath.
“Midian has seen them,” Chetiin said. Geth swung around to look for the gnome-just in time to see his arm swing as he hurled something back at the horses, then dropped into the grass.
“Down!” Chetiin said.
They pressed themselves against the ground. Geth kept his head up just enough to see the hurled object-an ordinary stone-hit one of the horses on the flank. The startled beast reared just a little and danced forward a few steps. The other horses reacted to it, raising their heads and looking around.
The movement was enough to draw the eye of one of the hobgoblin guards. He swung around.
Ekhaas, Ashi, and Aruget-Geth were caught in the open. “Toh!” cried the guard. Daavn, Makka, the hobgoblins and bugbears all swung to look as well.
Their friends froze for an instant, then dashed for the cover of the ridge. Geth saw Daavn’s eyes go wide-and Makka’s narrow with bloodlust. He grabbed Wrath so he could understand the words that were shouted.
“Get them!” Daavn ordered. “Kill them!”
The guards were in motion as soon as the command was ordered.
“They’re mine!” roared Makka. He charged, swinging his fists and bashing hobgoblin guards aside, with Pradoor clinging to his shoulder and cackling like a mad thing. The other bugbears, picks and hammers still in their hands, stood still, obviously uncertain whom to obey. Daavn drew his sword and screamed at them to follow as he took off after Makka. The bugbears roared as Makka had and leaped to the pursuit. They didn’t bother descending the steep stairs cut up to the tomb but jumped from rock to rock across the face of the ridge.
The distraction had worked, although not just for them. Midian was up and running, stealth abandoned for speed. He looked to be heading for a particularly rough section of the ridge about two long arrowflights away from the gate. Geth waited a heartbeat longer, until Daavn and his men were well away from the tomb, then pushed himself to his feet. “Go!” he said. “Tenquis, can you run?”
“You should have asked that before,” the tiefling snapped, but he was up already up and running nearly as quickly as Geth himself, if a little more unsteadily. Geth stayed close to him. Chetiin, faster than either of them, paused at the bottom of the stairs, then darted up ahead.
Tenquis was grimacing in pain by the time he reached the top, but he lurched over to the tomb door and ran his hands over the scarred surface. Geth felt a fresh burst of anger for Daavn and Tariic. The fine carving of Haruuc was nearly destroyed. Only his fierce, watchful face remained. Tenquis caught his look. “It can be repaired,” he said. “A good artificer or even a magewright with a little time can fix anything.”
The bugbears had taken their tools with them, but Tenquis reached into one of the pockets of his vest and pulled out the heavy steel pry bar Geth had watched him slide into it. He threw it to Geth. “When I tell you, work that in about there”-he pointed to the seam between the door and the frame where a bugbear’s pick had already broken a hole-“and get ready to heave.”
“That’s not going to work. I told you, the pivots are broken.”
“And I told you an artificer can fix anything.” He pulled more objects out of his pockets: a couple of tiny flasks, a stick of bright red chalk, and several roughly polished stones. The flasks and the stones he set to the side. Taking the chalk in one hand, he spread the fingers of the other wide and touched them lightly to the door on the side where the pivots had been. His face took on a distant expression and, after a moment, he started to trace out stange lines on the door with the chalk.
Geth looked to Chetiin. The goblin crouched on the edge of the space before the tomb, watching the ridge where Ekhaas and the others-and their pursuers-had disappeared among the age-carved rocks. Shouts and cries, the scrape and clatter of metal against rock came back over the ridge. Their friends were doing their job, keeping Daavn and his men busy. Geth still felt fear for them in his gut.
“Have you seen them?” he asked.
“Glimpses,” said Chetiin just as Ekhaas’s voice rose in a song that ended in a crash and a short, swiftly silenced scream. Geth’s hands tightened on the shaft of the pry bar.
“Geth, I’m ready,” Tenquis said.
Both Geth and Chetiin turned around. Tenquis was dusting shimmering powders from the tiny flasks over the chalk-marked door and onto his hands. He nodded at the broken spot he had pointed out before and Geth quickly set the end of the pry bar into it. When he was ready, he nodded back to Tenquis. The tiefling took a deep breath. “As soon as you feel the door shift, work the bar with everything you’ve got,” he said. “We only have one chance at this.”
He picked up two of the stones, a near match in color and grain for the stone of the door, and held them against his palms with two fingers of each hand. He spread his other fingers and, stretching his arms, pressed them against the door at the top and bottom of his chalked lines. His eyes closed and his face tightened in concentration. His lips moved in a rapid, nearly inaudible whisper.