The monster growled. She exhaled slowly and fought to regain her calm. A panicked hand missed its shot.
“Come closer so we can speak,” the creature said.
“I don’t think so. I can hear you just fine.”
“Very well. I offer a proposition. Secure for me a way out of this town. On a boat. With men who know how to sail it.”
“In exchange for what?” Alma asked.
“Your lives, for one. I can get out of this structure before you could marshal a defense. I can tear this town apart and everyone inside of it.”
Alma adjusted her stance. The creature remained hidden. “We’ll see about that.”
“You were at my home in the mountains,” the dragon said. “Your leader sought me out. Destroyed my lair. Cost me my life’s work.”
“You killed most of us.”
The dragon sniffed. “Not you. I underestimated your kind.”
“Just me. I’m the one you should be afraid of. What do you actually have to offer me?”
“Treasure. It’s what your kind understands. Gold, for one. Knowledge. Get me what I ask, and I’ll see you are satisfied.”
“What gold do you possess?” she asked.
“I could smell the boats and their cargo in the harbor. Salted meats. Herbs. Fish. Hides. Tell the town magistrate that the price of my leaving this place unharmed is a boat filled with such goods. You’ll require eight rowers. The boat is to be the large one I saw with the painted black hull. You’re to accompany me. Once aboard, you’ll conduct me where I wish to go. As a reward, I will give you the boat and its contents.”
“It’s not that simple. The boat doesn’t belong to the town but some merchant.”
There came the impatient drumming sound of talons on wood. “Then bring the man with us. Once we arrive, he’ll be compensated with coin. Gold. As will you.”
She studied the shadow in the doorway. “That’s a lot of promises. What’s to stop you from murdering all of us once we’re on the water?”
“The same promise that keeps me from just killing you now.”
Alma let the words settle in. Was the beast faster than her? She had faced it down before. The second time had resulted in almost getting knocked off a cliff. But she had hurt it bad on their last encounter.
“Lord—the leader of our squad who you killed,” she began, and licked her lips. “I never fully understood why he was pursuing you. Somehow I don’t think he knew you were able to talk.”
“Men and their decrepit memories. They will forget much and make up the most fanciful elaborations to compensate.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m here now. That is all you need to know. What I promise is what you desire, is it not? Do as I ask. Prepare the boat. When the vessel is ready, I will make my way there. And no tricks. I can smell the burning powders and bombs and will spot any men poised to shoot me. I am holding you responsible.”
Alma checked over her shoulder. Blades was watching from the corner of the alley.
“If you want eight rowers, they’ll need a share,” Alma said. “And if they see you, they’ll panic.”
“Then I will ensconce myself in the rear cabin. You may lead them to the boat once I’m aboard. I have further instructions. The goblins captured here. Have them led to the boat as well.”
Alma was trying to make sense of the request. “How long a voyage are you talking about? Where are we even going?” Even as she asked the question, she knew she had made up her mind. She was going to do as the creature asked, even as all her instincts told her to flee. Run and keep running and leave the cursed dragon and the damnable town of Eel Port behind her.
But a boat full of trade goods would be a prize worth risking her life for. And the true prize, the dragon, would be coming with them. All she had to do was find the opportunity to kill it.
The shadow moved. The dragon was speaking softly to someone inside. She realized her attention had lapsed. She drew back on the bowstring, ready to fire what would surely be her last arrow. But then Spicy was shoved out onto the ramp.
“Conduct this goblin to your bookseller or library,” the dragon said. “While he retrieves what we need to begin our journey, prepare the vessel.”
Alma studied the pitiful goblin. He looked scared as he walked towards her down the ramp. She slung her bow and dragged him by the hand to the end of the alley. For some reason, a bemused smile spread across the goblin’s face.
“Why are you grinning?” Alma asked.
Spicy shrugged. “Because now the dragon has you to order around, too.”
Chapter Thirty
Spicy couldn’t believe his ears.
Fath was speaking with the human woman Alma and making some kind of deal, all while staying in the cover of the doorway. The conditions were preposterous. The humans would never set a boat out for him, load it with cargo, and man it with rowers, would they?
Out on the water, Alma had fired first and hadn’t bothered with questions. Why would she even speak with Fath? Yet there they were, talking. Spicy could smell the blood from the recently killed men in the warehouse, and the reek of the cooked skin of the man the dragon had blasted with steam. It was turning his already queasy stomach.
Fath turned to him. “Time for your role in this.”
“What do you mean, my role? You don’t need me anymore. Give me the keys.”
Fath kept the key ring dangling on a talon. Spicy grabbed for it, but the dragon held it out of his reach.
“Oh, but I do need you, my little apprentice. You’re to keep learning from me and doing the work I’ve set out for you. Your fellow goblin children will join us on our voyage. With their presence, you’ll be less inclined to disobey or run.”
Spicy felt his throat tighten. “Those men are just going to kill you.”
“The humans will respond to their base greed. It’s what brought them to my mountain. Now to your task. We still need a map.” With a claw, the dragon nudged him through the open door. Outside, it remained bright and Spicy had to squint as his eyes adjusted.
There she waited—Alma, the white-haired archer who had been part of the barbaric raid on Boarhead. He had seen her murder a defenseless grandmother named Mala without hesitation. Alma had personally tried to kill him on at least three occasions.
Spicy walked down the ramp, his legs feeling as if they were going to give out under him. From somewhere in town, the bell continued to clang.
Fath instructed Alma to escort him to a bookshop.
Clearly impatient, Alma hauled Spicy down the alleyway to where Blades waited. “Take the goblin where he needs to go.”
Blades grabbed him by the back of his shirt. “You’re a whole heap of trouble, aren’t you?”
“Just do as you’re told,” Spicy said.
He slapped the goblin across the back of the head.
Spicy struggled to look up at the man. “Don’t hit me. You have orders, just like I do. And if you hit me again, I’ll tell the dragon.”
“You think I’m afraid of that monster?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Blades shoved Spicy against a wall. With a flash, a knife appeared in his hand and hovered in front of Spicy’s eye. Blades glared as he held it there. Although the knife hand was steady, he had sweat on his brow and lip.
“What are you doing?” Alma asked.
Blades sheathed the knife. “Nothing at all.”
She shoved him hard enough that he took two steps back. “We need that goblin alive.”
Blades looked up at the warehouse. “What we need is to get out of here.”
“Take the goblin to the library like I said.”
“How am I supposed to know where the library is?”
“Ask someone. Figure it out. I need to track down Commander Zane.”
She left them and vanished in the direction of the tolling bell. There were several people gawking at them from open storefronts and doorways.
“Move.�
� Blades shoved Spicy into the middle of the street and strode along behind him.
Spicy trotted along to avoid getting kicked. Now that they were walking, the residents of Eel Port seemed less interested in them and more intent on whatever alarm was sounding from the center of town.
Blades grabbed a man who was busy lashing equipment to an overloaded backpack. “The library—where is it?”
“Which one?” the man asked.
Blades cuffed him with the back of his hand. “The closest one, idiot.”
The man pointed. “Two streets down. On the square with the fish fountain.”
It became more crowded once they made it to their first cross street. The alarm bell was bringing people out in droves. Blades started to turn along with the throng, but Spicy pointed down the street they were on.
“That was only one street,” he said.
Blades gave him a push and followed. The cobblestones of the square were sticky under Spicy’s feet. As the directions had indicated, a fish was poised on a high plinth as if kissing the sky. No water flowed from its mouth. The fountain itself was dry. Only a handful of stalls were open, and the few merchants present were clustered in groups and talking. No one paid Blades and Spicy any mind as they went to the front door of an orange stone building.
A plaque on the front read Corazon Trust Books and Legal.
Blades tugged at the door, but it was locked. He looked ready to kick it in when a thin, bespectacled man appeared. His brows knit as he looked at Blades. When he saw Spicy, he sneered.
“Yes?” the man asked.
Blades pushed the man inside and entered. Spicy hurried to follow.
“I beg your pardon!” the shopkeeper said.
“Well, you can’t have it,” Blades said.
“What?”
“My pardon. Because right now, you’re offending me, and if you don’t unstuff your face I’m going to smash it in.”
The shopkeeper’s lips were moving but he wasn’t able to form intelligible words.
Blades poked him in the chest. “Shut up. What I need from you is to get this gob whatever he needs.”
“This…goblin? No goblins are allowed in here! Now, the both of you smell like street, and this creature might not be house-trained.”
Spicy felt himself flush at the insult.
Blades punched the shopkeeper. The man’s nose popped, and blood trickled from both nostrils. The shopkeeper tried unsuccessfully to stanch the flow. Blades plucked a handkerchief from the shopkeeper’s pocket and handed it to him.
“Well, you’re no help,” Blades said. The shopkeeper tried to step around the mercenary to get to the front door, but Blades pushed him down onto a stool and raised a warning finger. The man stayed put.
Spicy looked up at the bookcases. “I’ll find what I’m looking for.”
Only a few shelves were full of books, while half of the rest of the shelf space was occupied with carved bone or bronze sculptures.
A back room held ledgers and books of receipts along with several collections of bound loose-leaf notebooks. Spicy examined one and saw they were copies of documents either addressed to or from an entity called the Pinnacle High Court. Apparently, there was a Pinnacle Municipal Court and a Pinnacle Appeals Court, as well as a Pinnacle Merchant Arbitration Magister’s Office. The script on the pages was dense and in ink and there were many words Spicy didn’t know.
“Are you a law giver?” Spicy asked.
“A lawyer,” the shopkeeper said while clamping his nose. “Now put those books down before you tear a page or soil anything.”
Spicy curled his lip. “I’ve already gone potty today, if that makes you happy.”
The man continued to look miserable.
“Find it?” Blades asked.
“This could take a while,” Spicy said.
“How long?”
Spicy gestured helplessly to all the books.
“Just great,” Blades grumbled. He jostled the lawyer. “Got anything to eat or drink around here?”
While the lawyer fetched a bottle and a platter of fruit and cheese for Blades, Spicy busied himself spreading out books on a table. He perused the shelves and took a volume from each, sometimes at random and other times because the cover was a fetching shade of violet or the print along the spine was pleasing. During all this, he kept his eye open for maps.
One colored map with beautiful scroll lines illuminating its edges hung prominently on the wall. It was of Eel Port and its districts. The city had two main gates and a harbor. Its streets appeared to be arranged around its many marketplaces.
He discovered a bundle of bound maps stuffed into a case next to the front door.
Blades placed the closed sign in the window as he paced. Then he paused to examine the label of the bottle the lawyer had brought him. “Ah-rah-zhoo…Air-zoo…Are-zwa…”
The lawyer set down a glass on a coaster next to a reading chair and gestured for Blades to sit. “Arzuaga. Down by Bahia. That is their chardonnay. It was best when young, but this was bottled just five years ago and should still hold most of its vibrancy and strong pear notes.”
Blades knocked the top of the bottle off with the back of his short sword. The shattered neck and intact cork landed on the carpet. He poured sloppily and filled the glass while spilling an equal amount on the floor. He sipped and made a face.
“You didn’t say this was white wine. Get another bottle. The red stuff. Or if you have any, the kind with the bubbles.”
The lawyer hurried off. Blades finished his glass and refilled it. “Not bad, actually.”
Spicy pored over the maps. One displayed the southern portion of the Inland Sea in good detail. The map also featured a delta to the south, Pinnacle to the west at the center of a large bay, and in the center at the southern shore of the sea, Orchard City. Several labels hovered over tiny dots that must have been towns or villages. Nestled around the northeastern side of the bay were several peaks, but none of them were Devil Mountain.
He folded the map and slipped it into his pocket.
“Find what you’re looking for?” Blades asked.
Spicy froze. He looked over his shoulder. Blades had plopped down into the chair and was facing the window.
“Not yet. It will take some time.”
Blades made a vague hurry-up gesture and drank. Spicy got more books off the shelves. The lawyer returned with a second bottle. Spicy wasn’t offered any. In fact, he ignored Spicy completely, which was just fine.
The lawyer opened the second bottle with a corkscrew.
Spicy took down a random book from a rear bookcase and pretended to read, all the while keeping an eye on both men. Then he noticed the script wasn’t in letters he knew. But he recognized it. It was the same language Fath was teaching him. But these words were written top to bottom in neat columns. He saw a few characters similar to those he had memorized. None of the page made sense. But somehow it struck him as important that the humans had the script as well.
But looking over the page was taking too much time. He shoved the book under his shirt. Then, as the lawyer refilled Blades’s glass with red wine, Spicy went down the hallway and found a back exit that led to a brick alley and the streets beyond.
Chapter Thirty-One
Alma elbowed her way into the main town square where a central open amphitheater now held what must have been a large part of Eel Port’s population. Commander Zane stood on top of a bench and waved his arms as he spoke. The town’s alarm bell hung on a massive redwood stand next to him.
“Maybe the commander forgets the zealots at our gate?” someone called.
“I haven’t forgotten anything,” Zane answered. “I heard the report. A group of them ran at the wall and were driven back. I told you all we’re safe. But right now, there’s a monster in the warehouse by the harbor. I need every man who can take up arms to join me.”
His voice carried quite well. Alma continued to get closer and ignored the hostile looks and grumbles from
the men and women as she shoved past.
“A monster?” a voice in the crowd asked. “Are you sure?”
“I swear by my life’s blood I’ve never seen such a creature,” Zane said. “Talons as long as a man’s head…skin like steel…it killed twelve men just now. Straight down from the Monster Lands, I tell you.”
Several in the crowd were asking questions, until one woman outshouted them. “Who?”
Zane appeared confused. “What?”
“Who did it kill? Which men?”
Zane took a moment. “The entire day watch that was at the guardhouse.”
The crowd fell to a hush.
“My husband Goa was on duty this morning. Was he…was he with you?”
Zane looked down at her and nodded. She began shaking her head and wailing. Another woman grabbed her to keep her from collapsing. A general murmur rose among the crowd.
A man in a wool suit shouted, “So we kill the thing. What are we waiting for? Burn it out!”
Hands raised, Zane got their attention. “No! No! No fire. It will spread. You know that. I need anyone with a hunting bow or spear. We surround the place and get it to come out and face us.”
The response was subdued.
“Cowards, the lot of you,” the widow shouted.
“Bring some of the men off the river wall,” the man in the suit said. “You said the zealots were nothing to fear. The guards are trained and have weapons and armor. It’s what we pay them for.”
A general clamor followed. Zane was fielding a dozen questions at once as Alma made it to the front of the crowd. She grabbed the dangling hammer and struck the bell three times. A hush followed. Commander Zane looked at her as if not registering who she was.
“I can get rid of that monster for you,” Alma said. “No need for fire. No one else needs to pick up a weapon and get hurt. I know how to deal with dragons.”
“You were there, and you didn’t help,” Zane said.
“I didn’t help because fighting a dragon is suicide. I’ve seen what it can do and just now, I saw it again. It kills people.”
“What do you propose?” the man in the suit asked.
Goblin Apprentice Page 14