His face looked pale, his forehead clammy. “But...”
“But nothing, You’re already getting sick. I can see it. Now get back down the mountain before you become too ill to shift back.”
He nodded. Just before he hid behind the tree again, he called out to me. “Shoot that flare if you’re in trouble. I’ll make sure someone comes and rescues you.”
“I will,” I promised, however I had no intention of needing to be rescued. I’d spent enough time having people look out for me. It was about time I did something by myself. Okay, not exactly by myself. I had Morganna, but I knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t overprotect me like the others would.
Fiere disappeared behind the tree. I heard the disgusting yet distinctive sound of his bones grinding and cracking as he changed back into a dragon. It was a sound I’d never get used to as long as I lived. His wings unfolded and he took off, leaving only my shawl behind. Morganna and I watched him fly away until he was only a speck.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked Morganna, turning around and looking back up the trail. Flying the pair of us up here had obviously taken it out of him.
“Hopefully he’ll be able to glide back down to the village and shift there. I think he’ll be alright. Come on, let’s get a move on. I don’t want to be out here all day.”
It was a calm day, but cold so high up in the mountains. I wrapped the shawl over my shoulders and began the hike to the Goblin city. It took us longer than the twenty minutes we had planned to walk. The combination of the cold weather and rocky ground beneath our feet slowed us down. It didn’t help that we’d landed lower than we planned to in the first place.
An hour and a half later I could finally see the door ahead of us. Once again, it looked abandoned, a trick of the Goblins to make people think that there wasn’t anyone there.
I sat on a boulder and pulled a bottle of water from my pack. We’d both traveled light, expecting to only be out for the day, and had only brought a couple of bottles of water each. I unscrewed the top and handed it to Morganna. She took a swig and handed it back.
“Are you alright?” she asked as I gulped down the rest of the bottle.
The truth was, I’d felt better. I ached much more than I should for such a short walk, and even though I’d mostly healed from the burns, my skin was still delicate in some areas and was not being helped by the thick, protective leather clothing we were wearing.
Instead of admitting that, though, I took a deep breath and nodded my head. I didn’t want her to think I was weak.
“Come on.” I stood and packed the empty bottle back in my bag. Just then, a flash of red caught in the corner of my eye. I whipped my head around to see a red dragon circling above us.
“Ash!” I hissed. He couldn’t hear me as he was too high above us, but I couldn’t shout lest the Goblins hear me.
When he landed, he dropped something from his mouth which I recognized as his clothes, then quickly turned into his human form and pulling on his clothes. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “I’ve just sent your father home and now you’re here. Don’t you trust me?” I felt angry with him. When I’d left, he’d been totally fine with me coming up the mountain. Well not fine exactly, but I didn’t expect him to follow me.
“As soon as you were out of sight, I panicked. I’m sorry. I do trust you and I know you can look after yourself, but I thought I’d come for back up.”
“What if you become sick, too?” I huffed. “Your father was looking ill.”
“I’m fine.”
“Ok, just stay here, then. Morganna and I will go up to the Goblin city. We’ll shout to you if we get in trouble. For goodness’ sake, stay out of sight.”
He nodded and sat down behind a boulder.
“He just cares about you, you know,” Morganna said to me once we were out of Ash’s earshot. “Don’t blame him. He loves you, that’s all.”
“Hmm,” I grumbled. “How would you feel if Alpha popped out from behind a bush right about now?”
“Oh, I’d kill him,” she replied with a sly grin. I snorted with laughter.
The door was still hanging from its hinges, so we stepped into the tunnel that would take us into the Goblin Kingdom.
It was quiet. Too quiet. It reeked of Goblin trickery.
“Krikor!” I shouted out down the tunnel. My voice echoed back to me.
The tunnel ended, opening into the large cavern I’d seen before. It was empty. There was not a Goblin in sight.
“Where are they?” I asked. The usually busy city was now silent except for our own footsteps. “Hello!” I called out. Again my voice echoed, but this time it was much louder, reverberating off the cavern walls.
“Check the buildings,” said Morganna, pointing at the holes in the wall of the cavern which I remembered to be rooms cut out from the rock.
I went one way as she went another. She took the small restaurant I’d eaten in the first time I’d been here. I climbed a long set of stairs that led me almost all the way to the roof of the cavern before coming to a balcony. I turned and looked out into the cavern. I could see the whole place from up here. The buildings cut from the rock and the exit to the left, the tunnel to the mines in front and below me, and the rest of the cavern disappearing into the darkness to the right. Behind me was an open doorway. I stepped through it into the darkness. Once my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I saw a number of closed doors leading from the tunnel. I opened the first one to find a small room with a tiny bed. This was where the Goblins slept. I checked the next room. It was exactly the same.
I didn’t need to continue down the corridor to know that this was their sleeping quarters. I also didn’t need to search further to know it was deserted. The beds hadn’t been slept in for days and there were no personal effects. I opened a wardrobe door to confirm what I already knew. The wardrobe was empty. The Goblins were gone.
“Julianna!” I heard Morganna shouting. I dashed back to the balcony to see her standing below, just outside the restaurant. “The place is deserted,” she confirmed when I got back down to her. “We should have let Ash come with us after all. Do you think we should search the place?”
“What for? If they’ve gone, they’ve gone. They seem to have taken everything with them. Even the bedrooms are empty.”
“Hmm.” Morganna walked away from me slowly. She looked around her as if searching for something, but I couldn’t say what. I followed her to the entrance to the mines. I’d never been down there before; the thought of it unnerved me. The small bit of light that flooded into the cavern through holes in the ceiling didn’t quite reach down here, and once again I found myself walking in the dark. I followed the sound of Morganna’s footsteps in front of me, wishing I’d brought a torch with me.
As if reading my thoughts, Morganna clicked her fingers and the tunnel lit up.
“What just happened?” I asked, finally seeing down the tunnel.
“I got sick of walking in the dark and decided to use some of my magic. I have so little of it left and hate to waste it, but at the same time, I don’t want to break a leg by tripping over anything.”
The light flickered and went out. Morganna clicked her fingers again, illuminating the tunnel. Just as quickly, the light was extinguished again.
“That’s strange,” Morganna remarked.
“You’re out of magic?”
“No. I’ve got enough to last me a bit longer. This is something else. It’s as if magic isn’t working here.”
“Well, you’d better hurry up and get it working,” I said, gripping hold of the hilt of my sword, “because I can hear something and I think it’s coming this way.”
Chapter Fourteen
Gripping the hilt of my sword, I readied myself for a fight. I could hear Morganna’s steady breathing in front of me and beyond that, the noise of footsteps. They came closer. I listened as whoever it was ran up the tunnel toward us. The sound was faint but unmistakable. My breathing increased along
with my heart rate as the footsteps were almost upon us.
Closer, closer, closer...
Morganna clicked her fingers and the tunnel lit up. There was no one there. I whipped my head around, looking up and down the tunnel, but apart from the two of us, it was empty.
“What happened? Where did they go?”
The footsteps had gone past us and were now getting fainter again. Morganna’s light went out.
“Follow me,” she said brusquely. “I think I know what’s going on and I think I know how to stop it.”
“Stop it?” Stop what?
I held onto her arm as she guided me slowly down the pitch-black tunnel. I heard another sound. Water. The tunnel finally ended and for the first time in over ten minutes, I could finally see. Small shafts of light illuminated another cavern. This one was almost as big as the first, but much colder and damper. The water I’d heard was a huge underground river roaring through the cavern. This had to be the beginning of the river we had floated down to get to the deserted village. I remembered the water as being warm, but here, further down the mountain, the cavern was cold. Stalactites dripped water into the already ferocious river and a seam of a silver-colored metal ran diagonally through the rock, sparkling in the pale light. A small bridge crossed the river from where we were to what looked like a mine at the other side. A small track ran the length of it with an abandoned mine cart flipped on its side. Pickaxes littered the floor, dropped, no doubt, when the Goblins left. There was no one there and yet I could hear the very faint tap, tap, tap of tools on rock over the sound of the river.
“There’s no one here,” Morganna announced loudly, “Let’s steal the tools.”
Why would she want to steal the pickaxes? We had no need for them. She began to cross the bridge, but some unseen force knocked her back. She fell on her butt just in front of me. A smile played on her lips.
“What’s happening?” I asked, taking her hand to help her up.
“None of this is real. The Goblins are playing a trick on us.”
“A trick?”
“Yes. This place isn’t abandoned. I knew they’d try something like this. They are all here, we just can’t see them. Isn’t that right, Krikor?”
The sound of the tapping got louder. Images began to appear, at first indistinct before coming fully into focus. I opened my mouth as I took in the scene now. Whereas it had been desolate just moments before, now it was a busy working mine. Hundreds of Goblins were working, the abandoned pickaxes I’d seen now in their hands, being used to mine the metals they needed to make their magical weapons. The mining cart on its side disappeared and a fully working one zoomed down the track, filled with stones.
“I could have wasted more magic to erase the glamour they’d put on themselves, but I figured threatening to steal their stuff would do the trick.” Morganna grinned, sweeping the dirt from her clothes.
“Come this way!” An angry goblin appeared in front of us, a sword in his hand. It looked like one of the Slayer swords. “The king wants to see you.”
“Put it down, Shorty,” snapped Morganna. “We are here to see Krikor, anyway.”
He marched us back up the tunnel. It was now lit with what looked like fairylights, although they had to be run on magic. Krikor was back in the conference room where we had seen him the last time we were here, but unlike then, he was alone. The Goblin who had escorted us here bowed and left, closing the door behind him.
“Back so soon?” he asked, sounding resigned. “I can’t seem to keep you away, can I? Tell me, what is it that draws you to me like a moth to a flame? My good looks, perhaps?”
I stifled a snort. Never in a million years could anyone say that Krikor was good-looking. Even for a Goblin, who were an ugly bunch to begin with, he was unattractive.
“Don’t kid yourself, Krikor,” snapped Morganna. “You know exactly why we’re here. You sent us on a merry dance down to that village, knowing full well that there would be no one there.”
Krikor arched a brow. “What makes you think that? I have no interest in where Slayers go once they’ve taken their swords.”
“You might not care about the Slayers, but you do care where they go because you care where your precious swords end up. Isn’t that right?”
“I might like to keep an eye on them, yes,” replied Krikor smoothly. “But that doesn’t mean I know where they are.”
He was lying and we all knew it. “Tell us where they are,” I said, holding my sword to his neck. I’d had just about enough of the garbage he was spouting.
His eyes widened as he took in the sharp blade at his throat, but then he looked me in the eyes and grinned. “You won’t hurt me. I can read you like a book, remember? There’s a reason the swords empty their souls for you. You are an innocent. You’ll never purposefully hurt anyone, not even me.”
I pushed the blade further, leaving a small cut on his neck. A small drop of blood worked its way down his leathery green skin. “Want to try me?” He was right. I would find it difficult to kill, but when I thought of all the dragon souls he’d helped capture, the dragons that were now sick and might die because of the swords he made, I actually thought I might be able to do it.
He held his hands up but didn’t drop eye contact. He was goading me into doing it. I felt the anger rise within me. Could I do it? Could I really kill him to get what I wanted?
And then it hit me. Killing him wouldn’t get me what I wanted. Killing him would get me nowhere.
I lowered my sword.
“I knew it.” Krikor sneered.
“Yes, you did. You knew I wouldn’t kill you, but you also know that I could. You saw into my mind. You saw how angry I am. Why have you been lying to us for so long?”
“Why should I tell you the truth? You come to me, time after time, even though I’ve told you that you are not welcome. You already know how to free the souls of the dragons and yet you wouldn’t accept it when I told you. You know that there are other Slayers who come to us for swords, and yet you are here again. I don’t know where they are. Is that what you want to know? I was keeping an eye on them, but they left their village a few months ago. I don’t know where they went to. Are you happy now?”
“Not particularly. Yet again, you’ve told us nothing. We are no closer to helping the dragons now than when we walked through your door the first time.”
“That is no concern of mine. Why should I care if you free the dragons or not? Selling swords was my job. If you misuse them, then that is on you.”
It was clear that I wasn’t about to get any information out of him. He had a way of not really answering any questions meaningfully. Getting a straight answer out of him would be unlikely.
“Talking of selling swords,” interrupted Morganna. “I need a new one. My last one is ruined thanks to Julianna letting the dragons out of it.”
“You have no money,” Krikor stated.
“That is true, but I do have some Goblin magic left. Sell me a sword and you can have that.”
Krikor raised an eyebrow intrigued. “You have our magic and yet you chose not to use it to see us.”
“I didn’t need to. It was pretty obvious you were all still here. We could still hear them working down in the mines.”
“Hmm. I guess I’ll have to do better,” replied Krikor thoughtfully. “However, I cannot sell you a sword.”
“And why not?”
“We do not make swords anymore.” I looked at his odious face, split by a wide grin
Another lie. I’d seen a pile of them in the mine. I thought about all the lives that had been ruined by this Goblin. The dragons, suffering the loss of their loved ones. The Slayers, giving their innocence to fight an unnecessary war against a friendly species Something in me snapped. I picked my sword up, raising it upward, ready to swing. With months and months of pent-up rage coming to a climax, I swung at the small Goblin’s neck with a scream.
I braced myself for the impact, the feeling of resistance before the blade sli
ced the Goblin’s head off, but it never came. I blinked, trying to register what had happened. The scenery had changed. We were no longer in the conference room. We were outside. I looked around, trying to get a sense of what had happened. Morganna stood beside me, but Krikor was nowhere to be seen.
“What happened? Where are we?”
“I used what was left of my Goblin magic to transport us outside. Now that the glimmer has been erased, I could build up enough energy to use the magic. We are just above the entrance to the Goblin city. Look.”
I looked down the mountain a little way. The small green door was still hanging off its hinges. “Why did you do that?” I asked, still feeling angry.
“I didn’t want you to kill him,” she replied simply.
I thought about her response for a few seconds before realizing why. “You knew if I killed him, I’d no longer be innocent. If I’m not innocent, I won’t be able to set the dragons free.”
“Actually, I’d not thought of that. I stopped you killing him because I like you and I know that you’d never be able to live with yourself.”
Her answer brought peace to me, and the anger I’d felt just moments before now dissipated. She was right. Murdering someone, even someone as repellent as Krikor, would only cause me more pain. Yet I couldn’t help but think that we’d made yet another wasted journey up this mountain. I looked around for Ash, feeling dejected. It was only then that I realized that he wasn’t there. Ash was missing.
Chapter Fifteen
“Ash?” I shouted, stumbling down the mountain to where we’d left him. Beneath my feet, the shale-like rocks made every step a potential hazard.
“Don’t panic. He’s probably behind the boulder,” called Morganna behind me.
It was possible but unlikely. Why would he be hiding behind a boulder? When I got to the boulder, I didn’t find Ash behind it, but I saw something much worse. Shreds of fabric lined the ground. Shreds that I recognized immediately as the clothes Ash had been wearing. I picked up the biggest bit—a part of his shirt. There was no mistaking it. It was Ash’s, alright.
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