Hog followed as he headed around the fields to the water. No one was out working now that the sun had set. The moon wasn’t visible. He sniffed the ground. The off-putting smell he had detected earlier was everywhere. Fertilizer, he guessed. He dug around where the seeds had been placed.
The dog’s sharp barks continued unabated. The animal was clearly upset by something, but surely it couldn’t hear him and Hog. He wanted nothing more than to get away from the jarring sound. They went down to where the shallow water lapped at the muddy shore. A few birds stirred and flew away as Hog marched noisily behind him, each step making a loud sucking sound.
He could see two docks in the harbor. The wall featured a single dark guardhouse at its end, but it had no lit lanterns.
Spicy licked his lips. “It’s the only way in.”
“Meat swims now?” Hog asked.
“Yeah, no. I was hoping you could carry me through the water to one of the docks.”
Hog sniffled and then strode out into the mud, where she sank to her calves. She held a hand out and Spicy waded forward. The mud tugged at his shoes. It was almost up to his thighs before he reached her. She unceremoniously hauled him up and clutched him to her chest like he was a doll.
She waded through the water. Rather than walking upright, she crouched and began to swim.
Spicy found himself once again clinging to her and fighting to keep his head above water.
The rising terror momentarily paralyzed him. He wasn’t normally afraid of water, but he had almost drowned the last time he had gone swimming with the troll while trying to catch up with Lord and his boats.
He pulled himself up to her head, gripping her hair as the icy water swirled around them. It took his breath away. But they were quickly coming up to the first pier. When Hog stood upright she was chin-deep in the water. Spicy pointed to the second pier, which had ropes dangling from it. Hog strode forward until he caught the ropes and hauled himself to the wood planks of the pier. Shivers racked his body.
“Hide here,” he said. “I’ll come back soon.”
He wasn’t certain she had heard him. She made bubbles, followed by a low grunting sound. The fertilizer smell persisted, worse than before. How did humans manage to live in such a stench?
The buildings past the harbor were much larger than anything he had ever seen. Several were placed right along the water’s edge and set upon piers. Stacked crates and cut lumber provided good cover from the faint light that filtered from the shutters of the houses. Boardwalks lined the streets running away from the harbor. Mud filled the center of each lane. Rats scurried away from him as he made his way to a corner and scanned the streets.
It was overwhelming.
There were hundreds of buildings. Each might hold dozens of humans. He almost retreated to the dock. But then he thought of how frightened he’d be if he were trapped in the town. The children needed him and he couldn’t turn back.
Spicy squished across a muddy lane and moved along the front of a dark store. He ran his fingers along a pane of glass. There was so much of it. Boarhead didn’t even have its own glass worker, but had to trade for one to come down from Turtle Rock or Thousand Groves. Truly the humans had the gift of building. But the stench forced him to cover his mouth and nose.
The next house over had lights on. He pressed his face to the hazy glass. A man sat at a table writing. Rolls of papers were stacked on the table. The rest of the house was dark. The man dipped his pen in an inkwell and kept scribbling. Was this the town scribe? Spicy had been staring for a moment when a shape rose from the opposite side of the window. It was a dog with pointy ears. Without warning it barked. Spicy drew back and almost tripped as he stepped off the sidewalk. The dog continued to make an awful racket. The man rose from the table and walked towards the window. Spicy turned and ran.
Soon more dogs were barking. It was as if they were everywhere and in every house.
He slogged through the ankle-deep mud, heading up the avenue. But ahead of him came trudging a pair of men holding brilliant lanterns. They had a dog on a leash that was pulling them along.
“Ho, there!” one of the men shouted.
Spicy ducked down an alleyway between two houses. Barking and shouts echoed around him. Heaps of garbage were stacked up along the sides of both homes. Spicy stumbled over some of the rubbish and landed in a pile of stinking trash. The alley got brighter as the men turned the corner.
“Stop!”
Spicy slipped as he scrambled but got his footing. The dog with the men began to make a baying sound. He raced around a corner and ran through a back garden partitioned off with a short wire fence. He vaulted into another rear lot. Lights shone down from the nearest homes.
A back door was thrown open and a human stared at him.
Spicy climbed the next fence and landed on the sidewalk of a street. Around him were more alleys and more homes. The town felt like a maze. It sounded like packs of dogs were closing in on him from all sides. Soon he would be surrounded and torn to shreds.
There was a dark space beneath the boardwalk across from him. He dove forward and elbow crawled through the mud. He could hear the men running, first in the dirt, then their footsteps pounding on the planks above him. Their dog was grunting and making a choked bark.
“Did you actually see someone?” a man asked.
“Yeah. Looked like a gob,” the other answered.
“Probably headed for the wall, then.”
The footsteps moved down the boardwalk. Spicy was holding his breath. Their indistinct voices fell away. Other dogs in the neighborhood continued to bark, but none of them seemed to be outside. There was no one else around. For now. But at any moment the men might return.
He extracted himself from his hiding place.
The mud covered him head to toe. His skin was itching and his eyes burned. He headed the opposite direction of the guards and kept off the sidewalk. The cold mud seeped in through his shoes as he trotted along. Fewer dogs were barking in his immediate vicinity, then none at all.
A two-story house had lights burning.
He almost ran past when he saw a bookcase through the glass, illuminated by lamplight. As he paused, he saw it held a treasure of books. He stepped carefully onto the sidewalk, mindful of every creak of the boards. As he gazed inside, he saw more bookcases against each wall, perhaps a dozen. He wanted a better look, but wiping the mud from his face only made his eyes sting more. A rain barrel sat at the corner of the house under a downspout. He washed his face before returning to the window.
He almost drew away when someone rose from a large chair, but then the stout figure revealed itself to be a goblin. Spicy tapped the glass. The goblin inside turned and gaped. Spicy pushed his face to the window and waved.
The goblin dropped the book they were holding and stepped back.
Spicy knew what would follow: more screaming, more dogs, the guards coming back. He turned to run.
“Wait!” came a shout from inside.
The goblin came to the window. It was a girl about his age. She pointed towards the front of the house and her face vanished. At the high entryway, a bolt clicked and the door opened. The goblin girl stuck her head out.
“Who are you?” she asked. But before he could answer she waved him in.
Spicy entered the human house. The doorways were large. A giant staircase led to an upper level, thick rugs ran down a long hallway, and animal heads mounted on the walls stared down at him. It was stifling warm.
The girl raised a lamp. “You’re leaving mud prints on the floor.”
He looked down and saw a set of gray tracks following him in. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
“Who did you run away from?”
“I didn’t run away from anyone. I just snuck in town.”
She eyed him skeptically. “Well, take off your shoes. Your clothing too. If you’re not leaving, I’m not going to have you spread mud all over everything.”
She was about to walk off.
> “Wait. Are you going to call the guards?”
“We’ll see. That depends on you.”
“I’m not here to hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She looked him over and grinned. “I’m not worried. So are you staying or not?”
“Do you have a dog?”
“No.”
Spicy began to pull off his shoes.
Chapter Eight
She expected she’d be leaving Blades behind. But he kept up. She was struggling to maintain her own pace, as her breath kept falling short and the sharp ache in her chest and side only intensified. All complications from her tumble over the cliff. Maybe a rib was broken.
Plus hunger.
Plus thirst.
One step at a time, she reminded herself.
They had walked all day with only a few breaks, with Alma deciding when to rest and when to press on. She kept a mental game going, selecting something a hundred yards off and setting it as a target, distracting herself from her pain by counting steps. Mercifully, the sun was visible through the clouds that day and maintaining a westward course proved simple.
It wasn’t fear of the mountain tribesmen overtaking them that kept her motivated, although she would fight with every ounce of strength to not let that happen. She felt a rage building inside her. She had left her band of delta pirates in search of better opportunities. Her journey took her to Orchard City, where Lord had recruited her and made her an officer. He had promised her a cut of a big purse at the end of his quest, far beyond the wage soldiering would provide.
She had believed him. Now she had nothing.
At least the hardscrabble pirate life had put food on the table. And had given her something akin to family, better than any she’d had.
With Lord and the other mercenaries in the platoon, there had never been a close bond, although the pay was steady. Lord made good on his sign-up bonus. But Orchard City was expensive. Money slipped through her grasp during the months of recruiting the other men. By the time the agent from Pinnacle had signed their platoon into the archduke’s service, she was in debt. The troubles with the Inland Empire promised a lengthy period of increased pay. Pinnacle was putting everything into squashing the upstart zealots, as Lord had anticipated.
With his quest subsidized, they set out. Like a fool, she had followed, believing his pursuit of forgotten lore would result in a payday that would set her up for life.
She muttered a curse.
“Did you say something?” Blades asked.
She didn’t answer.
Surely, she could return to the delta. Her old family would embrace her. But her heart would never be satisfied. Orchard City or Pinnacle was where she imagined herself, but that dream required her to earn gold. As a deserting mercenary, the prospect of once again finding employ with the archduke was dim.
She thought about goblins. And trolls. And dragons.
Goblin slaves were a possible commodity. Selling the troll Lord had captured was a genius idea, though it had to be scrapped when Lord had the creature put down. But what of the dragon?
A cabinet of curiosity with fake fantastic specimens preserved in jars could earn an Orchard City huckster a fortune. So what would a dragon bring?
Something on a rock face caught her eye. It was a long shirt, an undergarment, laid out on a rock. She signaled Blades and they both got down. With a few quick gestures she communicated she would go forward and he would wait. Blades nodded.
She readied one of the goblin arrows. They were shorter than her own hand-cut arrows. Accuracy would be somewhat compromised as she was unaccustomed to the length. But the shaft was straight and the fletching perfectly inlaid. She wished for a good steel head instead of stone.
The air held the scent of smoke.
A stream ran between the boulders. Two boots sat on a rock where a small pool eddied. In a patch of soil a modest fire burned. Several tiny fish cooked on a stone. She climbed a rock and spotted three men downstream of the simple camp. Each had a line in the water, with one man stripped to the waist and perched upon a boulder over a second pool.
All three men belonged to Lord’s platoon and had been left at the boat at the shore. Why were they here?
She waited and watched. The three were having some success with their fishing spot, as each had a stringer with hooked fish. Just the thought of food made her stomach grumble.
Near the fishing hole were two horses tied up by a meager patch of grass. The pack animals were too old to serve as effective mounts in such hard terrain.
There was no sign of any posted sentries.
She felt her anger rise. Sliding down off the rock, she marched towards them. All three men stiffened when she came into view.
“Alma?” a man named Billy said. An experienced sailor and a halfway competent swordsman. He wore a sleeveless leather jerkin and his pale arms were covered in dark ink. The platoon had had another Billy when they’d set out, but he had died when the troll attacked.
The other two men refused to make eye contact with her.
She kept a cautious distance. “Where’s everyone else? Why are you men up here?”
Billy spooled up his fishing line. “The troll came back and attacked us. We didn’t kill it. We tried to find your trail, but we didn’t have any supplies. Where’s Lord?”
“He’s not coming. Something’s happened. How many of you are left?”
“It’s just us,” Billy said.
There was something uneasy about all three of them. Any pretense of military order had vanished. They were unkempt. None had weapons at hand.
“I walked right up to the three of you,” Alma said. “You have no guard posted. I could have shot all of you down before you made cover.”
Billy’s jaw tightened. “Well excuse us for not setting out pickets. And lining our camp with stakes. And raising a palisade and a watch rotation. We figure if the troll is going to chase us out of the sea and all the way up this mountain, then we’ll hear it coming. But now we’re catching our dinner. We’ll worry about the rest tomorrow.”
“Watch your tone with me. I’m still your officer.”
“Are you now? You come walking back down the mountain just to remind us of our duty? Has Lord uncovered his goblin treasure? Seems to me you’re a bit light on supplies, let alone luggage stuffed with gold.”
Alma realized Billy had a sharp eye. She wasn’t carrying any gear save the bow and quiver and her two arrows. When she’d served as the platoon scout, she had kept a pack with a meticulous selection of food and gear.
“It’s true I wasn’t here looking for you. But I did spot your shirt on the rock and your fire. It’s not the troll you need to worry about right now. Lord isn’t coming. Nor are any of the others. It’s just us. We were ambushed by mountain tribesmen. There’s also a goblin hunting party looking for us. It’s only a matter of time before they find you. Maybe hours. I doubt they’ve stopped for late noon tea. I’ve managed to keep just ahead of them. It’s your choice if you want to keep up with me. Together, we might stand a chance. But you men look sloppy, like a group of urchins out on picnic. Perhaps you’ll be of more use staying here. At least you’ll provide a distraction.”
She walked back up to their fire. The tiny fish were hot and overcooked, but she sucked down two of the trout, chewing noisily on the bones. She dabbed juice from her mouth with her sleeve. The three men followed and watched.
“That’s our fish,” one of the others said weakly. “She’s eating our fish.”
“Shut up,” Billy said. “Lord’s gone?”
Alma picked up a third thumb-sized trout and blew to cool it off. It had a slight lump near its tail. A tumor. Normally she’d throw such a fish out, but she was too ravenous to care.
She nodded. “Lord. Medico. The other men. Our horses. The tribals got most of them, the goblins the rest. Blades is right behind me, keeping an eye out for anyone trailing us. But it’s only the two of us. And there is no treasure. Coming he
re was a mistake.”
The three men shifted uncomfortably in place as she spoke.
“What I do know is I’m going to get off this mountain alive. With a little luck, I’m going back south to Orchard City. If you decide to come with me, you’ll follow my orders. Or you can wait here, and we part ways. Either choice works for me.”
She ate the third fish.
The men exchanged glances.
“What about our pay?” Billy asked.
“We’re in the same situation. We left our post, so our contract with Pinnacle is forfeit. We’ll have a hard time getting hired by anyone allied with the archduke. But there are always options for good soldiers to make money.”
She had their attention.
“But right now a bag of gold is worth less than a belly of food to get us through another day,” she continued. “We can make a few more hours on foot before it gets too dark. So if you’re coming with me, swamp the fire and gather the horses.”
One of the men licked his lips as she picked up the last fish off the cooking stone. This one she took the time to savor.
Chapter Nine
The goblin girl led Spicy to a washroom with a tiled basin set in the floor with a drain. She brought in a bucket of water and set it down.
“Put your clothing in the laundry basket.” She waited for a moment, but Spicy didn’t undress until she turned her back. “Was it you raising the ruckus earlier?”
He plopped the sodden, mud-filled pants and shirt into a basket before taking the bucket and stepping into the basin. “Are people not allowed out at night?”
She let out a laugh. “People? Yes. Our kind? No.”
Using a rag, he washed the mud away. Soon the water in the bucket was swirling with dirt. She took it, but not before looking him over. He did his best to cover himself.
“Use the towel on the rack,” she said.
He was left alone to dry himself off. Then he waited awkwardly.
“There’s a robe out here for you,” she called.
Sticking his head out the washroom door, he saw her rummaging through a closet. A blue robe, human-sized, hung from the doorway. Spicy took it and draped it over his body. He had never felt cloth so soft. It smelled clean and warm, but he had to draw it up around his waist.
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