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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