Middle Finger set his jaw. His face was all business. “Go on.”
“There’s someplace else you could go. You have children with you that belong to some of your men. I’m guessing some are now orphans. I have the young ones from my village to care for and I don’t believe they’re safe here in the delta. Let’s bring them all up the Inland Sea. Back to my homeland. It’s far enough from the archduke that it might be safe. There’s plenty of places you could take this boat after, either to sell or use for whatever business you drum up.”
“All the way up to the Monster Lands?”
“Athra. That’s what we call it.”
“That’s a long way away, Mister Goblin. We don’t even know if we have enough provisions for a voyage like that. Winter’s almost upon us. If you’re insisting on this, it will mean I stand to disagree.”
“I’ve been in the holds. There’s enough to eat and more. But perhaps you’re forgetting something.”
Spicy pointed to the dragon occupying a good portion of the main deck, as if anyone could forget that he was there.
“I don’t want your boat. I don’t want to take anything from you. I might even consider some of you friends. But I demand that we make him safe. And that won’t happen down here in the delta. Let me take him home with me. All you have to do is provide the ride. I know it’s a long voyage. But this is a good boat. And last I saw, you have a dozen crates with bombs. I now know how valuable those are. You stand to make gold, which will help you get established wherever you decide to make your new home.”
Spicy had no idea what to expect. Middle Finger was difficult to read. Spicy almost jumped when he offered a hand. Spicy took it and they shook.
“It’s a big ask, sailor,” the captain said. “But you cared for me and mine. And who knows? Maybe when this big beast awakens, he’ll decide he has something to share with us that’s even better than bombs.”
Spicy changed Goldbug’s sweat-soaked blanket out with a fresh one. His patient slept in a small bed nook on a collection of the softest bedding Spicy had ever laid his hands on. Goldbug continued to sleep fitfully. He hadn’t woken for over a day and remained feverish. A couple of the Bird’s Landing women came in from time to time and offered to watch him, but Spicy refused to be budged from his post.
“Eyes forward,” he said to the sleeping form. “It’s a rule.”
His thoughts went to Rime. He imagined what Rime would have said about all that Spicy had learned and done. He then wondered what he would tell his sister, Thistle, about Rime’s death.
Had Thistle even known that Rime had a crush on her? She wore a blue ribbon he had given her, but such gestures were common in Boarhead. Thistle wasn’t stupid. She must have had an inkling of Rime’s feelings even as she had busied herself with the sage’s homework.
The boat began to rock in earnest beneath his feet.
What was he to do once they made the upper reaches of the sea? Athra was a day or two away, and then his ruined village would require another week, all assuming the children could make the trek and the dragon could travel. If Fath hadn’t recovered by then, they wouldn’t be able to leave the boat.
All worries for the next day.
He once again focused on his patient.
The motion of the boat beneath him almost felt normal, if not natural.
From the deck above, Dill was shouting at Eve to put something down. The laughter and squeals of delight that followed gave him hope they would be okay, that the worst of their experiences would fade. The human children were laughing too. Had some of them been witnesses to the archduke’s brutality in the mud village? Would the humans want to chance finding a home near Athra or in what was left of Boarhead?
There were many other goblin communities untouched by Lord’s raid that would weigh in on such a move. Had the scattered remnants of Boarhead moved on or were they even at that moment rebuilding?
It would be a difficult winter for them all.
But in the new Sin Nombre with his allies, Spicy felt hope.
He had such wonders to tell, and knowledge of men and their cities to share. Along with a dragon, the goblins held their portion of the world’s secrets. And Spicy couldn’t wait to put them to writing for all to see.
Epilogue
No one had seen the archduke for a month since his sudden departure on the Cormorant. Yet since the last chancellor’s disappearance, no one among his staff or court officials dared set foot into the basement of his palace.
Pinnacle’s elite formed a ruling council. This privy body of prominent nobles and the major business interests of the Bay Kingdom had long ago lost patience with the archduke and his obsession with finding dragons. The city’s commerce had suffered as the treasury had been depleted. The war with Pater the Zealot had become an embarrassing folly, costing the kingdom lives and the confidence of its vassals and the minor dukedoms along the bay.
With the archduke’s mystery mission and his failure to return, the council members convened and began to take steps to care for Pinnacle and her interests. The city of spires would once again rise. But she had debts.
The first step would be to recall all available troops from the frontiers. Civil unrest had grown as empty bellies fostered discontent, which led to violence in the streets. Some of the older council members remembered the miserable months before the last thaw. The fires in those frigid days had almost consumed the city.
The privy council took action. It sent fresh emissaries to the Dons to reignite trade. A tax amnesty was declared to the other dukes, who could increase the yields of their respective industries.
But even as the council’s informal meetings in the outer courtyard moved to the more courtly setting of the palace’s banquet hall, the basement remained off-limits.
Four weeks after the archduke had departed, a wailing began, starting at midnight and lasting until just before the dawn. The servants at the palace gathered to pray away the spirits that haunted the palace. The guard captain who responded to their panicked summons thrashed the page severely before hearing the keening himself, upon which he repeatedly made the signs of the three rings and joined the other servants in their supplications.
The archduke appeared the next morning, ascending the basement steps, wearing only an ill-fitting robe. No one spoke as he walked down the great hall to the entrance of the palace. The servants put the word out and soon all were at their stations, heads bowed low.
It was the stand-in for the chancellor and the archduke’s chief accountant, the bald woman named Lady Huldai, who finally approached the archduke as he stood in the open doorway. He was gazing out at the rising sun as it crested above the eastern rooftops of the city.
“My duke,” Huldai said, “you’ve returned to us.”
“My sons,” the archduke whispered.
“Your sons, my duke? They were with you when you departed. But I have not seen them since.”
“My sons are lost to me.”
The archduke turned and walked back through the great hall.
Huldai hurried to follow. “I will fetch the physicians. Let me gather your guards and we can set out to search for your sons.”
He passed the banquet hall and the kitchen as he headed to the basement stairs.
She stopped at the top step. “Your orders, my duke?”
“They’re all gone,” the archduke said. “No bone, no flesh. For their flesh is mine. But they are no more.”
“We can search for them. But you must come to bed to take your rest. The council, they don’t listen to me. They have begun to withdraw soldiers from the north. My duke, the taxes, they’ve—”
He raised a hand to cut her off. Then he turned and descended into darkness.
The archduke felt his way along to the lab where he had grown his sons. The table of books and notes lay where he had left it, undisturbed during his absence. Hanging on a chair were the dark clothes the last of his sons had worn. They remained dirty and bloody from their long journey home.
Once his son had carried him back to Pinnacle and brought him to the palace and its basement, the duke had realized that for him to continue, the son would have to return to the father.
He would weep, but the last of his tears had dried up so many centuries before. He would work, but even as he struggled to light the lamp with shaking hands, he realized he was fading.
So tired.
The flickering fire threw golden light down on the pages before him. Yet the words set in writing held so little compared to what he knew—what they knew.
The dragons.
Those who wouldn’t share their secrets. That one of them would share so much with a goblin was so frustrating!
He would be the perfect steward. Yet why the goblins and not him? The death of each dragon meant a loss to the ages—a waste only he could comprehend.
Leaning close to the nearest book, he studied the lines of text. It bore the recipe for an explosive. He reached for another book and blew off a film of dust. This was the tome that held the techniques he had so recently employed. Yet it felt unfamiliar. His finger ran from line to line. It hadn’t been so long since he had grown his sons. But what had been the first step? And the second? Which combination of ingredients began the process?
Must remember, he thought. But the haze in his mind had only grown. Perhaps the accountant had been right. He needed his rest.
There would be time the next day to resume his work.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed Goblin Rogue.
If you have a moment, please consider leaving a review. Even a short comment can help small press and independent authors find new readers, and your opinion is important to me.
“The Orchard City Two-Step” is a free short story in the Goblin Reign universe. You can find the download link at my website, GerhardGehrke.com.
Spicy’s tale will continue. But what about his sister Thistle and her fellow survivors whom he left behind? Goblin War Chief follows Thistle from the time of Spicy and Fath’s departure. Thistle is challenged with the bitter reality of survival for her people as she’s faced with a new human invasion and an enemy from among her own kind.
Goblin Rogue Page 21