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“That’s impossible,” said Tenquis, but Ekhaas could tell he didn’t believe his own words. The evidence was in front of them—rocks and rubble bare of even the hardiest grass.

The stories said the Dhakaani travelers who had first discovered Suud Anshaar’s fate had found the fortress utterly empty of life. Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword.

“Where do we start?” asked Geth. “Do you think there are lower levels? The fragments of the shield could have been stored in a vault.”

“Remember what the Stela of Rewards said,” Ekhaas reminded him. “Tasaam Draet was ‘given the care of the symbols of muut forfeited by those lords whose treachery he has ended’ as if that was some kind of reward. Legends also depict Draet as arrogant in his power. Someone like that would want to show off his reward. I think the fragments of the shield would have been displayed somewhere public.”

She looked at the ruins again and pointed to a distant shell of nearly intact walls and soaring arches that lay among them like an egg in a cradle. “Dhakaani builders usually put throne rooms at the heart of a palace. The seat of a great lord would be in a similar hall. That’s the place to start.”

“That sounds good,” said Geth. He stepped into the mouth of the gate.

“What? Wait!” said Tooth. The bugbear had been quieter than Chetiin, but his eyes went wide with fear. “We’re going in tonight? Shouldn’t we wait until the sun rises?”

“The moons give enough light. Do you want to sleep here?” Geth asked.

Tooth’s big ears twitched down a bit. “You can stay outside the gates, Tooth,” Ekhaas told him. “You don’t have to come in. That was our agreement.”

Somewhere in the distance, the shriek of a varag rose over the jungle. Tooth’s ears sagged a little more.

“Maabet” he cursed—and lifted his grinders. “Fight a wolf, fight the pack. I’m coming.”

The way through the ruins was slow. Suud Anshaar hadn’t just been a single fortress—it had been a complex and a large one at that. The rubble of buildings blocked their way, forcing them over or around heaps of stones that sometimes seemed dangerously unstable. Chetiin moved with ease, but the rest of them had to pick their way. The lack of plant life was something of a blessing, if an unnerving one. The shadows cast by the ruins in the moonlight were deceptive and their sightlines already uncomfortably short. Ekhaas was glad she didn’t have to worry about pushing through trees and bushes as well. She still found herself peering into every corner and behind every crumbling column, waiting for the attack she knew in her gut was coming.

Maybe that was why she was the first to see the skeleton.

She spotted it almost out of the corner of her eye, a silhouette framed within a stone window against the night sky. Visions of the undead, of dry bones to accompany bodiless, howling ghosts burst over her. She grabbed Geth and pointed—silently. The thing hadn’t moved. Maybe it hadn’t seen them.

Ekhaas felt Geth stiffen under her hand, then he hissed to get the attention of the others. Tenquis almost jumped. Tooth and Marrow both froze motionless like the hunters they were. Chetiin, however, glanced once at the skeleton, then burst into motion. Like an independent shadow, he darted across the ground, paused beneath the wall in which the window frame was set, then swarmed up the stones and through the frame. Ekhaas saw the brief glint of moonlight on steel—then Chetiin paused, as still as the skeleton. After a moment, he lowered his knife, reached out, and touched the skeleton.

It still didn’t move. Balanced on the window frame, the goblin turned and gestured for them all to join him.

“What is this?” Geth growled, but he followed as Ekhaas moved out under the window. Up above, Chetiin was examining the skeleton closely. Keeping one leg on the windowsill, he stretched the other across and rested it on the skeleton’s bony hip, then reached up and heaved at the thing’s skull.

It came off in his hands with an audible crack. The shock must