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And the sound of rain was overwhelmed by the clatter of hooves.

Geth jumped up. He still wore his great gauntlet, though Wrath had been laid aside. He seized it. The blade seemed alert and happy, ready for its chosen hero’s moment of glory. He cursed the ancient sword. “How late is it?” he asked Tenquis.

“Most of the way through the second watch, I think.” The tiefling dashed around his workshop with quick movements, stuffing papers and trinkets into the pockets of his long embroidered vest. His tail lashed furiously. “This is Tariic, isn’t it? He figured you out—or someone gave you away.”

Geth didn’t answer that. Outside, hoofbeats had given way to footsteps. He pointed at the tool-covered table. “Get rid of those!”

Tenquis leaped to the table. His eyes flicked over it and he added a few more things to his pockets—then took up a heavy steel pry bar and jabbed it into an inner pocket of his vest as well. The massive shaft slid out of sight without even shifting the fabric. Tenquis gripped the collar of his vest, whispered a word, and the labyrinthine pattern of embroidery that decorated the garment seemed to writhe. Any hint of bulging pockets vanished. “Safe,” Tenquis hissed between his teeth, then he seized the edge of the table and heaved, overturning it and sending the remaining tools skittering across the floor in an anonymous jumble.

The crash brought an exclamation from those outside—and a command to attack. “Get out one of the back windows!” Geth shouted at Tenquis.

“They don’t open!”

The twin doors of the old barn burst in a shower of splinters under the shoulders of two big bugbears. Geth roared and charged to meet them, sweeping Wrath ahead of him. The twilight blade tore into the flesh of one of the bugbears, but the other managed to duck aside. A hairy fist wrapped in rings of scarred brass punched at him. Geth snapped up his gauntlet and brass screeched across black steel. Geth kicked the bugbear’s shins and followed up with another swing of Wrath that forced the Darguul to jump back.

But more soldiers were pushing through the door, and hobgoblin hands were tearing at the shutters over the front windows of the barn. Geth saw Tenquis bare his teeth and snatch a slim wand from a workbench. Shifting to one side of the fight, he flicked the wand with one hand and, with the other, dashed the contents of a tiny vial into the air. Pale liquid leaped like something alive, flying farther than it should have and splashing in a ragged line under the windows and before the door. Thick greenish vapors rose up from it, a smoky curtain that brought shrieks of pain from the hobgoblins who thrust arms and faces through the broken windows.

“Paaldaask!” someone shouted. Spellcaster!

Four hobgoblins had made it through the door before Tenquis’s curtain had risen. Two charged for the tiefling while the other two moved warily to aid the bugbears menacing Geth. The shifter growled and made a low feint at the bugbear he’d wounded before. The soldier stumbled back, getting in the way of one of the hobgoblins, and Geth turned the feint into a whirling attack that brought him up inside the reach of the other bugbear. His armored fist drove hard into the Darguul’s gut. The bugbear wore a heavy leather jerkin but the blow still doubled him over and sent him reeling.

Geth stayed with him, pressing the attack. His foot came down on something hard and round—one of the spilled tools from the overturned table. Already pulled off balance by the swinging weight of Wrath, he staggered.

The doubled-over bugbear lunged at him, big arms spread wide. Geth tried to twist out of the way, but the bugbear crashed into him and slammed him to the floor. Wrath flew from his hand. Instantly, the other soldiers were on him as well. They all carried clubs or weighted saps and didn’t hesitate to mix their blows with hard kicks. Geth tried to ward them off with a sweep of his gauntlet, but a bugbear caught his arm and held it back.

Geth caught a glimpse of Tenquis, wand stripped from