by Jean Rabe
She continued to scan the goblins, all of them seemingly well fed, many of them plump, a few even proportionately as thickset as the Ergothian priest. To never want for food— like those cave goblins—would be a good thing.
Ah, there she was! Mudwort recognized the necklaces that hung from the young shaman’s neck. She was sitting against the cavern wall, just like Mudwort, who continued to sit with her back against the mountain. The young shaman’s head was down, chin touching her chest, so Mudwort knew she was sleeping.
There was nothing interesting in watching her counterpart sleep. Mudwort thought about ending her spell and getting some sleep herself.
“A few moments more,” she decided. “Then sleep.” She concentrated, hearing the snores of many of the goblins in the cave. They sounded so much like her kinsmen sleeping along the trail below. But they did not repulse her as much as her kinsmen did; they did not carry the stink of sweat and dwarf and tylor blood. They did not—
The shaman stirred, picking up her head and yawning. Mudwort’s attention flew back to the shaman, eyes widening when she saw that it wasn’t the same shaman after all. She had wrinkles at the edges of her eyes, and her face was not so smooth. Her nose carried a thin scar, and another scar ran from her ear to her jaw. There was a bone hoop in her right ear, recently stuck there as it was crusted with blood from the piercing, and there was a feather and a bead on a string hanging from the left.
“Not the same shaman.” Though the necklaces were the same. The disappointment was thick in Mudwort’s voice. “No, not the same—”
Or was it?
The eyes were similar. So was the face, though it was older. The shaman’s mother perhaps?
“Years and years and years older. But how can that be?”
Mudwort tried to get more comfortable, pressing herself farther into the niche, and settling in to watch and puzzle out the age problem.
“A curse? A disease that withers?”
The goblins below called the shaman Saarh, Mudwort had understood on her previous magical visit. The name meant “prized one” or “treasure” or “princess.” Saarh rose and stretched, clenching and unclenching her fists, and picking her way through the sleeping goblins to stand in the center of the cavern under the dome. She twirled slowly, the beads around her neck clacking and the feather and bone hoop that hung from her ears fluttering. She was graceful, the most graceful goblin Mudwort had ever seen, and she moved so quietly that only the beads made any noise.
Saarh moved her fingers in a pattern as if they were spider legs and she were weaving a web. In response, some of the symbols in the dome glowed, winking on and off and throwing an odd, ghostly light over the goblins sleeping below.
How had Saarh aged so many years in such a short time? The question gnawed at Mudwort. Very, very curious, Mudwort thought. She still couldn’t say where in the world the cave was.
“Or when in the world,” she said, sudden realization dawning.
Mudwort shivered with the thought.
“When, when, when.”
Well more than a few days had passed in that cavern, that was for sure. It had been more like twenty years, judging from Saarh’s wrinkles. The shaman was middle aged. Mudwort couldn’t tell how she knew, but she realized that she wasn’t looking at the present. No curse or disease was responsible for Saarh’s aging. It was simply time.
Somehow, it must be that Mudwort had glimpsed the past when she first touched the cavern with her mind, and she was looking at the past still. The cavern and Saarh and all the goblins with their crude spears were not a part of Mudwort’s world.
Her mind had journeyed through the stone and into the past.
The stone of the earth was ancient, and its memory long. Mudwort guessed she was borrowing those memories by looking in on the cavern.
Another shiver passed through her. It amazed even her. So she could use her magic to look not only across distances, but across ages. She could peer through time.
Just what else was she capable of?
She’d become distracted by her realization, and the image of the shaman and the cavern started to fade. Mudwort fought to retain the images, feeling the pulse of the mountain quicken against her back. She focused on the shaman, on those dark, magical, and mysterious eyes. What had they witnessed through the years? What did Saarh know? How long ago had she lived?
What did the cavern look like in the present? Not ten years earlier, or twenty, or whenever Saarh breathed. But at that very minute.
Seizing on that impulse, Mudwort turned her attention to the cavern itself, the decorated walls and the dome. She put all of her energy and efforts into bolstering her seeing spell and was promptly rewarded with blackness.
Mudwort raged and raged. She thrust her head back, striking the rock and hurting herself. There was nothing there at all. Nothing … she concentrated harder. Her mind was still in the cavern, she could tell that, but she was staring at darkness. Then shadows began to separate as her keen eyes probed. At the same time, she listened, hearing nothing, no snoring goblins. She heard only her own breath and, after a few minutes, the flutter of bat wings.
The cavern was empty of goblins.
The markings were still on the walls, more numerous than when she saw them before; they stretched nearly to the floor in places. It wasn’t so much that she could see them as that she could feel them, her mental fingertips tracing the various cuts and curves made in the stone. She let her senses drift to the granite floor.
It was smooth and polished but more so than before. The feet of decades had made the floor cool and pleasant to the touch.
Mudwort searched and searched, finding only the small crevices where the torches had been, no traces of the wood that once burned. Guano was thick directly under the highest point in the dome; bats had lived there for quite some time.
“Where is the shaman? Dead?” Mudwort wondered. Dead and burned a long while ago?
“When was the shaman?”
Mudwort finally ended her spell.
She was exhausted, as if she’d walked miles and miles and miles over the ugly terrain of that ugly land.
She opened her eyes and looked up, expecting to see the moon with its rain ring.
Instead she saw the lightening sky.
Mudwort had passed hours inside her seeing spell.
17
SARO-SARO’S SCHEME
Direfang awoke shortly before dawn, carefully picking his way through the sleeping goblins to the head of the column. Mudwort had said the pass would end soon, but she’d found a trail of sorts that wound up the western ridge that they could follow to the other side to reach the river. Direfang decided to take his charges along that trail and follow the river to the New Sea.
He walked south alone for a short while, seeking rare solitude. He was far enough ahead that he could no longer hear the snores of those still sleeping or the chatter of the ones just waking up. All he could hear was the whisper of the wind edging over the ridge and stirring the dust at the bottom.
How many days had he walked? How far had he come from Steel Town?
Hell Town—he’d heard the wizard call it that once.
Indeed, the Abyss could have been no worse than the Dark Knight mining camp. Direfang wore the years he’d spent there in scars. They were so thick in places on his chest, arms, and back that no hair grew there, making him ugly, a grotesquerie as far as humans and hobgoblins alike were concerned. He scratched at the left side of his head, where his ear had been; a small, jagged piece of flesh remained. His appearance and size had helped make him a formidable foreman in the mine. His arms and legs were thick with muscles from the hard labor in the camp, his hands and feet callused. He’d hoped to find shoes in Reorx’s Cradle, but he’d not had the opportunity to look through the homes. His first responsibility had been to keep an eye on all the goblins, keep them from rampaging or squabbling.
Besides, his feet were not hurting as badly as they had been earlier. Either the calluses wer
e growing thicker or he was becoming used to the constant dull pain.
A large bird flew overhead, banking slowly and circling. It was a hawk of some kind, dark brown and with white tail feathers. There were other birds higher up, black specks seen against a pale gray sky. Direfang watched them for a few moments and savored the sweet air. There’d been birds around Steel Town, mostly scavengers. The large one that still circled was a predator.
Direfang dropped his gaze and opened the book filled with the dwarf’s charcoal maps. He guessed at where he was in the range, not far out of Reorx’s Cradle. He saw where the pass ended, probably a few hours of walking ahead, and there was a thin line indicating the trail that would take them over the western range. Mudwort had confirmed the authenticity of the map with her spell the previous night.
The Plains of Dust? He’d been thinking about that place lately, wondering if they should go there.
Mudwort had tried to convince him the Qualinesti Forest was a better destination. She and Moon-eye and Boliver had delved into the earth and searched for a good goblin home for the long-term future. They’d agreed on the Qualinesti Forest. Mudwort was undoubtedly right about the forest, Direfang mused. The forest would be the goblins’ best opportunity to build their nation.
But it was so far away. He tried to picture it on the maps the Dark Knights had stretched out across their long table. The forest was a world away.
Direfang had slept little the previous night, thinking about the long, hard journey ahead. He’d come to a difficult decision just a little while earlier—not one that would sit well with Mudwort. They would travel around the fishhook of mountains to the swamp, spend some time there hunting and resting to recover from the arduousness of their trek thus far, then they would head to the Plains. It would take them weeks and weeks to get to the Plains, maybe a few months. But the Plains were not so far from the forest … if he recalled the Dark Knights’ maps correctly.
That way, he could investigate the Plains, and Mudwort could have her way too.
Direfang closed the book and gave a last look up at the hawk, which still circled, but farther west and higher. He headed back to his charges, his twisted leg not bothering him as much anymore and his vision much improved over the previous day.
As he drew closer, he stared at the rag-tag army, all of them waking up—more than eight hundred, less than one thousand. There had been more before Hurbear’s clan broke away many miles earlier. About half of his charges wore clothes and scraps of armor taken from Dark Knights, ogres, and, just yesterday, the dwarves.
Few of them had been afforded the luxury of clothes in Steel Town. Neither had any of the goblins there had possessions. Since then, many wore clothing and all coveted various things they’d hauled away from Reorx’s Cradle and the other places they’d looted. The possessions had given them pride.
It was almost funny, Direfang mused. One goblin had claimed a stool half as tall as he was. It was awkward to carry, but he’d stubbornly refused to part with it or to trade it for smaller and perhaps more valuable things. Other goblins bore empty flowerpots, pans, ceramic mugs too big around to comfortably hold in their hands, books they could not read, vases, gardening tools, sacks of seeds and bulbs they probably would never plant, toys they’d snatched from dwarf children’s beds, sacks of flour, and many other things that Direfang had no names for. One old goblin led a pig on a leather leash; some held chickens and geese they’d stolen from the dwarves, and others tugged stubborn goats. A few of the bigger, plumper goats were protected from slaughter, and they were in the Dark Knight Kenosh’s care.
The Dark Knight priest said Graytoes’ stolen baby required milk, which the goats could provide. Direfang suggested the goblin younglings in the throng could also benefit from the milk. Hence a few goats were saved.
The entire army looked like refugees streaming from some village with everything they owned on their backs.
Indeed, they were refugees, and Direfang intended to find them a home.
Saro-Saro and his most prominent clansmen had claimed a wide spot in the trail, one where a rocky overhang sheltered them. Direfang stepped around members of the Woodcutter clan and beyond Graytoes, who belonged to no clan. She held the baby close, rocking it and singing an old song to the youngling that Moon-eye used to sing to her. She smiled at Direfang and immediately returned her attention to the baby.
Several Flamegrass clansmen were mingling with Saro-Saro’s clan. Direfang thought it good to see the two groups getting along.
“Saro-Saro.”
The old goblin snorted and got to his feet. He adjusted a green cape he wore over his shoulders, his fingers wiping off a silver pin that held it on. He nodded to Direfang and suppressed a yawn. Around him, members of his clan stood and stretched, some of them beginning to eat vegetables they’d harvested from Reorx’s Cradle.
“It is time to go over the mountains. The pass will end ahead where a trail leads up and to the west. It will be a few hours of walking to that trail.” Direfang pointed to the western range. “A narrow trail and probably difficult to climb. But there is a river on the other side.”
“Thirsty,” Pippa said. She sniffed at herself. “And dirty. Cleaning in the river would be good.”
Saro-Saro looked thoughtful. “A mountain trail. Steep?”
“Looks to be steep.”
“Dangerous?” Pippa asked.
Direfang shook his head. “Dangerous only to those who are not careful.”
The hobgoblin did not notice the glimmer in Saro-Saro’s eyes.
“This river,” Saro-Saro said. “The one on the other side. It leads to the New Sea Mudwort talked about?”
Direfang nodded. “Spikehollow?” Direfang looked around. He expected the goblin to be somewhere near Saro-Saro, as he usually was. “Where is Spikehollow?”
Pippa scowled and tugged on Direfang’s arm. “Spikehollow is a little sick,” she explained. “Maybe more than just a little sick. Maybe Spikehollow should have talked to the skull man last night. But Spikehollow—”
“Is fine,” Spikehollow finished, emerging from between two burly, yellow-skinned goblins. He still wore his quilt, but he’d tied it around his neck, wearing it like a cape. It looked garish, the colorful thing fluttering around his shoulders. “The sleep helped a lot, Pippa.”
Direfang turned and walked toward the front of the column. “Spikehollow will lead this army,” he said over his shoulder. “For a while. At least until the pass ends and the trail up the mountain begins.”
“The very steep trail,” Pippa whispered. She rubbed her hands together gleefully. “And when Direfang reaches the top …”
Saro-Saro’s voice became barely audible. “Spikehollow will push the big, ugly hobgoblin down the mountain.” He paused. “And this time Direfang will not survive.”
Spikehollow, nodding to them over his shoulder, followed Direfang. But the young goblin did not walk as fast as usual, and he was shivering despite the warmth of the early morning. He breathed shallowly to keep from coughing.
“Feel better,” Spikehollow said to himself, “but not much.” He tugged the quilt tightly around him and tried to pick up his pace, stumbling when he bumped into a goat tethered to the Dark Knight named Kenosh. He hurried around the three Dark Knights and avoided Graytoes. Spikehollow didn’t want the others to see him sick.
“Saro-Saro is old,” Spikehollow mused, knowing he stood a very good chance to inherit the clan at Saro-Saro’s passing. “Saro-Saro might not live to reach the New Sea. Spikehollow lead now, but soon it might be Spikehollow’s army truly.”
He passed a brown-skinned goblin he’d befriended in Steel Town, one who often worked the same shift as he in the mine. He’d given the goblin, Bugteeth he was called, the gray blanket he’d plucked from the home in Reorx’s Cradle. He stood tall as he passed him, not wanting to appear as sick as he felt. He smiled and gestured.
Bugteeth smiled a greeting, then turned and coughed and wiped a speck of blood off his lips.<
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18
HOPE
Graytoes ran her finger along the baby’s bottom lip. It was soft, softer than anything she’d touched before. The goblins who walked at her side said the baby was an ugly thing. Its skin was too light and uninteresting; it was all smooth with no bumps or growths. And it cried for seemingly no reason.
At least its nose was wide, one goblin told her, and its eyes were reasonably large.
It didn’t have much hair on its head, another pointed out. So while it was a dwarf baby, it didn’t look like any of the dwarves in Reorx’s Cradle; they were all hairy creatures.
Graytoes knew the speakers hadn’t seen the other babies in the house. None of those babies had much hair, and admittedly the one she had taken had the least. She hadn’t picked that baby because of that fact; she’d picked it because it was the smallest and would be the easiest to carry. And she picked that one because she liked the cooing and gurgling sounds it made when it seemed to be happy. She told herself that the baby would be far happier with her and the rest of the goblins than stuck in a village that had been plundered to the point where nothing of any value remained.
She looked forward to naming the child. But what should its name be? A dwarf name might be appropriate, but Graytoes had never seen a dwarf before Reorx’s Cradle, and she did not know any of their type of names. Goblins and hobgoblins were often named after their physical traits or acquired habits or sometimes for the area in which a clan lived. Her dead mate, Moon-eye, had been given his name because one of his eyes was a solid white, overlarge orb that looked like a full moon. Bugteeth ate bugs, probably from a very early age, and often legs and wings got stuck to the front of his teeth. She had no idea how Mudwort got her name, as she was red skinned and did not at all look like any patch of mud.
Then there were goblins named after ancestors, such as Saro-Saro. She’d heard him say that his grandfather Saro was a clan leader, and because he was the second Saro in the family, they doubled the name. Spikehollow said he thought he was named for the tall, scratchy reeds that grew around his home. Some goblin names made no sense to her, seeming to be sounds more than anything else. Other names likely had a significance known only to the parents or the clan.