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Geth clenched his teeth. “Why are you helping us now, then?”

“Once I had the final piece, the puzzle turned out to be bigger than I thought.”

The sack chuckled quietly. “We’re cold-hearted bastards, Geth,” said Midian.

Aruget turned slightly so that the sack swung against the side of a wagon. Midian let out a muffled curse that Aruget covered with a well-timed cough—a cough that turned into a soft curse of his own. He twisted, giving Geth a little more cover, at the same time moving a hand across his face, as if scratching his nose. When he lowered his hand, his features had shifted just enough that he could have been any hobgoblin. “Keep moving but get your head down,” he said. “Tariic’s here!”

Geth heard the hoofbeats of trotting horses over the noise of the milling crowd in the plaza. He dropped his eyes, feigning great interest in his feet. His hand curled tight around Wrath. When Aruget paused, along with everyone around them, to turn and shout praise to the passing lhesh, he paused, too. He couldn’t bring himself to call Tariic’s name, though. The hoofbeats didn’t slow. When they’d passed, he risked a glance up.

Tariic rode on into Rhukaan Draal without even acknowledging the cheers of his subjects. Two hobgoblin guards followed him.

“Now we’re in trouble,” said Aruget. “If he goes to his quarters, he’ll notice that Wrath and your gauntlet are missing.” He quickened his pace.

Geth risked another glance back at Tariic. Haruuc’s nephew didn’t look happy. “He doesn’t have the rod yet.”

“It won’t be for want of trying. If he’s here, he’ll have left someone at the tomb. Daavn, probably. Maybe Makka too.”

Geth allowed himself a grim smile. “Good.”

Two hobgoblin soldiers guarded the great red stone arch, probably intended more to raise an alarm if anyone approached than to provide actual protection. From his hiding place among the shacks that were the fading edge of Rhukaan Draal, Geth didn’t even see Chetiin slip past the guards, but somehow the shaarat’khesh elder was abruptly behind them. One guard went down with a knife in his back. The other turned, only to meet a second knife as Chetiin dropped down from above.

“He’s got them both,” Geth growled. “Move.”

They raced for the cover of the arch. Ekhaas and Ashi took the lead, Geth kept pace with Tenquis, and Aruget stayed close to Midian—now freed from the sack. They all clustered in the shadows of the arch and peered through the open gates to the ridge where Haruuc’s tomb lay.

Half a dozen bugbears wearing the red corded armbands of Khaar Mbar’ost attacked the dagger-thick stone of the tomb door with picks, hammers, and bars. The banging of their efforts was louder than the rush of the cataract, but so far all they’d managed to do was scar the carving of Haruuc. Daavn and three more hobgoblins watched their slow progress along with Makka and, perched on his shoulder, Pradoor. Horses picketed to a low line cropped the grass close to them.

Ashi scowled. “Why so many?” she asked quietly. “Tariic could have hired a wizard to get into the tomb with magic, couldn’t he?”

“One more person who would learn about the rod,” said Aruget. “Tariic doesn’t have to explain himself to servants. And I doubt if anyone except Daavn, Makka, and Pradoor is going to survive long after that door is opened.”

Ashi’s scowl deepened.

“There are too many for me to hold with a song,” Ekhaas said.

“And Pradoor might resist it,” Geth added. His skin crawled a little at the memory of the blind goblin woman chanting her spell in the torture chamber.

“We don’t have to go through them,” said Midian. “I already have a way in, remember? I always planned on getting the rod out again the same way. I could slip in and get it without anybody knowing.”

Geth and all of the others only glared at him. The gnome shrugged. “You don’t think I’d bring it back to you? Send Chetiin with me.”

Chetiin’s jaw twitched. “I don’t value my life so little.” A wounded expression crossed Midian’s face and he hunched back in a sulk.

A little too far back for Geth’s liking. “Stay where I can see