Goblin Rogue

by Gerhard Gehrke

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The crew took two of the village’s rowboats up the inlet until the water narrowed to a trickling stream. They passed several dwellings on their way, but the people who lived in them hid as the crew rowed by.

  Middle Finger had traded the remains of the Sin Nombre to the villagers in exchange for several packs of dried fish and skins of water, along with the rowboats. These were to be abandoned at the head of the inlet so the villagers could recover them.

  Once on land, Goldbug led the way. Middle Finger tried to get him to wait so they could draw out a rough map and better determine their location and heading, but Goldbug was soon out of sight, having hiked ahead into the heavy shrubs and sodden hillside.

  For several miles they had a road cut with cart tracks, but to continue east they chose a branching route with little sign of anyone having passed along it in days.

  By midafternoon, they were slogging past a few small hamlets where it was difficult to tell by cursory examination how the scrawny inhabitants subsisted, as nothing appeared to be growing. There were no livestock and no crops save for some dried sunflower and silty ponds which, Spicy supposed, might contain fish.

  A winding dirt footpath connected each village. Anytime Spicy tried to approach one of the locals, they would dart away. Spicy decided to not waste any more time with them.

  Goldbug waited at an intersection. A signpost poking above high grass had arrows pointing in three directions, but the words on the signs were so sun-bleached they were impossible to read.

  Middle Finger had his compass out and he looked down each trail. “That way must lead back to Duke Tarrow’s lands. Beyond that, Duke Fabian to the south. But the Cormorant will be passing Orchard City by nightfall and we won’t even have made it halfway.”

  “Then we don’t stop,” Spicy said.

  They trudged on down the trail, which had no marker or indication of what lay in that direction. A line of men and women shuffled past carrying packs of firewood and cut grain. The crew offered trade, but the locals were wary and didn’t stop to barter or chat. Goldbug fake-stumbled against one. The man pushed him away, several small potatoes spilling from his pack. Goldbug helped him recover his load.

  “Good health, father,” Goldbug said as he helped the man up.

  The man grunted a mumbling reply in Cityspeak before pocketing something and hurrying off.

  “You give him something?” Spicy asked.

  Goldbug nodded. “A penny. ‘Vitality and bounty,’ he said. Good to know.”

  Without explanation, Goldbug vanished at a fork in the trail.

  Spicy found his tracks.

  “Does he know where he’s going?” Spicy asked.

  “The lad’s never let us down.”

  They continued after Goldbug and soon were heading north. Spicy could tell by the way the trees and the moss grew, and Middle Finger checked his compass regularly. The captain kept pace despite his injuries. The rest of the crew followed without complaint. Thick weeds and sickly trees lined their path, and pools of black water obscured the way in many places. They passed no more villages, but only the occasional shack. Some appeared abandoned.

  Spicy brought the flag of the Sin Nombre out and tied it around his neck.

  “You managed to save that?” Middle Finger asked.

  “You were going to leave it.”

  “Some might consider it a sacred thing, a ship’s banner.”

  “It’s safe with me.”

  Middle Finger smiled. “Maybe we’ll live to sail another day.”

  “For my stomach’s sake, I hope not.”

  They marched single file. Spicy was exhausted by the late afternoon but refused to rest.

  The smell of burning wood and roasting meat hung in the air. A trickle of white smoke rose above the trail. When Spicy rounded a bend of thick willows, he saw Goldbug was kneeling in a clearing. Before him stood three men in black robes next to a short, smoldering pyre.

  One of the men in the robes nodded at the crew as they approached. Middle Finger took a knee next to Goldbug. The others did the same. The glyph wardens returned their attention to the smoothed ground before them. One drew in the dirt while the other two murmured softly.

  Spicy moved closer to see.

  The rough shapes were impossible to make out clearly, but the dirt bore at least twelve glyphs. The warden reached into a pocket and threw a palmful of small seeds out before him. He then crouched and touched each one as if counting which landed in which glyph. This process was repeated and then the three men huddled together.

  Spicy couldn’t stop staring at the shapes. He wished for a notebook to copy them. Did these men even understand what they were writing? It didn’t matter, but he wanted to know. Perhaps in one of the dragon’s books, the glyphs could be translated. He put a finger to the dirt to copy them and set them to memory.

  Goldbug shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

  Spicy stopped. The glyph wardens might take offense. Perhaps one day he would learn their secrets.

  They waited on the wardens for another minute before their leader turned to face them. Goldbug produced a coin and handed it to the warden. Then he motioned the rest to follow as he made his way down the trail past the pyre.

  “What were they doing?” Spicy asked once they were out of earshot.

  Goldbug helped Spicy as they crossed a flowing stream. “The day’s blessing. Vitality and Bounty. It’s what the old man told me. If we hadn’t known what it was, it might have been trouble.”

  “They would have attacked us? They were outnumbered.”

  “Probably not them. But others might have. And they would have cursed us.”

  Whereas Goldbug had been indifferent to the glyph warden in Pinnacle, now it sounded like he believed. Spicy didn’t challenge him. They continued along the trail until dusk, when they searched for a patch of dry ground where they could rest.

  As he began to doze, unidentified bird and animal noises began to rise.

  He opened his eyes and stared into the dark beyond where the others slept. A cone of light from on high shone down on a goblin woman who stood wearing a long dress typical of those who worked the rice fields. She had it hitched up to her knees.

  “Mother?” he tried to say, but his jaw was frozen and his mouth wouldn’t let the word escape his lips.

  He ran to her and grabbed her into an embrace.

  Her eyes bulged, staring blindly as he tried to say something, anything. Her arms and hands were as cold as ice. Other goblins were around him now too, the dead from Boarhead, and others from Thousand Groves. They were the ones Lord’s band had hung from the great oak. Even Sage Somni stood among the dead, though he had perished by taking his own life at the Spirit Rock.

  But then among them he heard the cries of the children.

  Dill, Flora, Eve, little Domino, and Pix with his cough. “Spicy!” they called. He was frantic to find them in the crowd of unmoving phantoms. A thick fog descended around him. The children’s voices grew softer until he could barely hear them.

  “Where are you?” he managed to shout. “Come to me! You’re not supposed to be here!”

  But they wouldn’t come closer. The harder he tried to push past his fallen neighbors, the more they hemmed him in. The children’s voices went silent. All he heard was his own voice, hoarse with the strain, desperate, and alone.

  They rose before dawn. A late moon made the path bright enough. As if by unspoken agreement, none of the crew wanted to remain in that patch of swamp a moment longer. They fell in as Goldbug led the way. Soon they were beyond the giant reeds and cottonwoods. A river lay ahead where Goldbug waited. Making the shore beyond would mean having to swim.

  “We can make it,” Spicy said. But the brown water flowed past quickly. Spicy threw a few rocks in but had no sense of how deep it was. There was no other way forward. As the rest of the crew gathered, they collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. The little sleep they had gotten and their meager r
ations were taking their toll.

  Spicy squeezed the last few drops of water from the skin he carried.

  Middle Finger moved from man to man. Two didn’t have shoes. While the soles of their feet were thick, they were now puffy and bleeding.

  Goldbug was busy prying a leech off his calf. Insects swarmed about in the morning air. The men kept swatting at them with little zeal.

  “Why don’t they bother you?” Goldbug asked.

  Spicy waved a mosquito from in front of his face. “What do you mean?”

  Goldbug showed Spicy an arm covered in red dots from bites. Spicy’s own skin remained unblemished.

  “It’s the goblin blood,” Alvarez said as he scratched his own cheek bloody. “Monsters don’t feast on monster. The devil’s house isn’t divided.”

  “You forget the dragons killing each other,” Goldbug said. “Maybe Spicy’s blood is too bitter for them.”

  “Or our Master Goblin is smart enough to duck when the blood bugs swoop past,” Middle Finger said. “Mister Spicy was the only one who thought about taking our banner when we jumped ship. As long as he carries it, the Sin Nombre is still with us and will sail again. We’ve made it this far. We don’t stop.”

  Most of the crew kept their eyes downcast. Spicy was feeling anything but virtuous.

  Middle Finger looked across the water. “This is the way, then.”

  Goldbug pointed in the direction the water flowed. “That would take us to the southern outlet and Orchard City. Across the way, we cut over the hills for maybe two days, less if we hurry. Bird’s Landing is just on the other side.”

  Alvarez grunted. “The flies will consume us body and soul by noon.”

  Spicy wandered downstream and pushed through a cluster of thick ferns that grew along the river. On the opposite shore was a well-built hut with a spacious porch perched over the water. A skiff was tied off in the current by a series of nets spread out across tall poles.

  Spicy returned to Middle Finger and reported what he had found. “Would rowing from here be faster? With the small boat, taking turns?”

  There was no way they’d all fit in the skiff.

  Goldbug thought about it. “With a shallow boat like that, we can make it. Eventually. It will mean taking the outlet towards Orchard and cutting under some of the bridges. There’s more than one muddy patch where we’d have to carry it. If the archduke has men looking for us, they could catch us.”

  “But the fact you’re thinking about it means it could be faster than continuing overland. Captain?”

  Middle Finger took his glasses off and considered his men. “We might not even make it in two days with the way we’re dragging. Go. Warn Bird’s Landing. I’d wish you luck, but we’ll need all we can get ourselves and I’m feeling selfish.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Spicy followed Goldbug as they waded through the moving water. It rose above his waist and was only getting deeper. He felt along with his feet, the slick slime shifting with each step. Then the mud dropped away and the water ripped his legs out from under him. The current had him. He thrashed and grabbed for anything as he was swept away. Goldbug dove in and darted after him. Grabbing Spicy by the collar, he dragged him along, finally grabbing a branch and hauling them both to the far shore.

  The Sin Nombre crew stood and watched from the opposite bank. At that moment, Spicy didn’t know if any would have tried to save him.

  Goldbug pushed him by his bottom up onto the mud. “I thought you could swim.”

  Spicy was coughing and nodded. “So did I.”

  They took a moment to recover before approaching the shack.

  “Hello?” Spicy called. He didn’t hesitate to peer in through a curtain that served as the front door. “No one home.”

  The interior held little in the way of furnishings or property, but the place was clean. A row of colored bottles lined the floor along the walls. The doorway to the porch had a glyph above it he didn’t know. He took a moment to examine it before moving out onto the back porch. There he found a dragline tied to the skiff. With Goldbug’s help, they pulled it close. Spicy jumped on board, landing on top of a pile of blankets.

  “Oof!”

  A grizzled old man bolted upright from under the blankets and blearily looked at Spicy. “A goblin?” He raised a shaky hand as if to ward off a blow.

  “We’re not here to hurt you. We want to hire your boat.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  “We can pay. We need to take it down past Orchard.”

  “No one pilots my boat but me.”

  Spicy looked up at Goldbug, who was crouching on the porch and watching the exchange.

  “Then we need to hire you,” Spicy said. “But we need to leave now.”

  The old man mumbled something and stood up. The skiff shifted precariously under the man’s feet, but remarkably he kept his balance. Then he pissed over the side.

  “And how many pennies are we talking about?” he said as he finished his business.

  Goldbug tossed the mostly empty coin purse into the skiff.

  The man grabbed the purse and counted while moving his lips. “A meager sum for an experienced navigator. But I’ll take you, if only because your goblin smells so sweet.”

  Spicy’s assessment about the skiff was true. There was no way they could fit more men on board the tiny craft. The skiff pilot didn’t share his name. The rest of the crew watched from the shore as they got underway. Middle Finger gave them a solemn nod. The pilot eyed them warily but made no comment as he poled the craft upstream rather than down.

  “But the current takes us toward Orchard,” Goldbug said. “This is the wrong way.”

  “You don’t know the waters here, then, do you?”

  At a rocky bend where trickling streams intersected the river, the pilot pulled a tight turn to where the flowing water lapped across a shoal. The skiff’s bottom bumped and grated as the pilot poled across it. Spicy thought they would get hung up, but soon enough they were floating free.

  They were on a new fork of the river where it formed a shallow channel off the main waterway. Rocks rose all around them but the pilot deftly avoided each, pivoting the skiff with an expert hand. While Spicy and Goldbug sat and clung to the edge of the craft, the pilot remained standing, his knobby legs shifting with the surging water beneath them.

  The pilot hummed as he worked, occasionally grunting when the skiff got hung up and needed an extra push. He never called on his two passengers for help. After an hour over some rocky straits, the water deepened and soon they were cruising down a calm tributary where the trees above formed a canopy.

  This part of the delta had more residents. They cruised past small huts likewise built over the water. A few farms occupied clear-cut hills where the trees had been chopped down and the vegetation had been burned away. Sometimes the water grew wide and straight only to once again begin twisting.

  To Spicy’s eyes, the direction could only be guessed.

  But their pilot appeared to know the way and used no map. At each muddy turn or split, Spicy tried to keep track, as often the sun wasn’t visible above the haze.

  Their tributary finally merged with a wider channel. A wood and chain bridge spanned it and Spicy could see a guard on one side. A pair of laborers with tools traversed the bridge and a few men were working the shore beneath it, digging into the mud with shovels. The water beyond had a few boats in it.

  The skiff pilot began to pole along the edge of the waterway where it remained shallow. The guard overhead craned his neck as they passed underneath.

  Spicy adjusted his neck wrap and covered his head in case he might be recognized.

  “Put that away,” the skiff pilot hissed.

  Spicy hesitated with the Sin Nombre flag in his hands, but then he stuffed it under his cloak.

  The pilot pushed them along for a moment before speaking. “Best not tell the whole world you’re pirates. I’m sure there’s a bounty for you somewhere. Maybe that Or
chard guard will decide you’re worth leaving his post.”

  “We’re not pirates,” Goldbug said.

  “No? Then what pirates did you steal that flag from? If that’s the case, then there’s definitely a bounty for your skins. Probably more than you’re paying me to take you to your destination.”

  They were far enough past the bridge that the guard wouldn’t be able to see.

  Spicy took the flag out again and showed it to the pilot. “Our boat was burned out from under us by one of the archduke’s ships.”

  “So maybe two bounties for you lads, eh?” the pilot asked. “Merchants always willing to pay to have a pirate swung from a yardarm. And Pinnacle, well, they’ll pay in scrip for the honor.” But his craggy face now wore a grin. “What did you do to piss off the archduke?”

  “We broke into his keep and freed a prisoner.”

  The pilot laughed. “Hail the esteemed rogues. Never had I such talent aboard my humble vessel.” The man shook his head but then grew silent as he continued to move them along.

  Goldbug remained sullen during the exchange. It wasn’t until later that afternoon that he spoke to Spicy as they waited on the pilot, who had tied off the boat and gone ashore to relieve himself. Their route had taken a new turn, and now they were fighting the current.

  “Why did you give away so much?”

  Spicy looked around at the empty waterway. “Who’s he going to tell?”

  “He might try to catch us and sell us.”

  “I don’t think there’s any bounty on us. No one knows who we are. The Sin Nombre, maybe. But not Goldbug and Spicy.”