“This was a real favor,” it said to him, referring to the trade.
One of the other goblins laughed and said, “Better than Sool’s stew. If wood men go to the old town on the Dimm, do not eat Sool’s stew.”
“Grem tell the story!” another then called out.
“Sool’s stew is so good you will eat it all,” Grem replied, from down the line. “Ask Sool why it tastes so good, and Sool will never say. But finish the pot and you will find its true flavor. Head of a thring is in the bottom of that pot. You scoop up all the stew and look down into the pot and the white head will look back up at you and say, hey! Don’t eat me!”
A few minutes later they returned past Wulman and Leofind, collecting them before traveling across the ruins and climbing back up over the ridge. Wayland had banged another rhythm on the tin plate every minute or so as they went away, until they were back down the other side, moving toward the draw.
The next morning they got their gear together, packed the ponies, and then came over the ridge and part way down to the road where they could watch the ruin. It now seemed deserted, but it would be hard to really know.
“I think they buggered off in the night,” Wayland said. “They are close by, and may watch us as we travel on. But they have their meat and their plunder, and we are a match for them in our numbers. It would go bad for them also if they attacked us and the word got out. I say that we can hazard it and go on up the road.”
They came down to the old road and followed it to the middle of the cross of old stones. They then turned and went up toward the hills, through the stark frame of the Darkling’s Gate. There was not a sound or any movement from the old temple ruins as they passed, and just a little trail of wispy smoke from the remains of the fire.
The road followed the sides of the hills, built where the slope was easy. It had been banked with stone at one time, like a good traveler road, but now there were repairs using only dirt on some areas, or nothing at all. There were stunted trees protecting little patches of life, with short grass and brush otherwise. Springs made small, lush oasis of lichen and ferns in places where they came out of the rocks, and the sound of birds and animals could be heard. The pines and cypress became more numerous, and the sides of the hills sometimes opened up into caves or stone walled grottos. The sun shone bright on it all, making it look peaceful, but it was a dangerous place for men.
After an hour of travel they saw a small group of thyrs ahead, blocking the road. They stopped short, but then Wayland used his hand to signal that they should move on. As they neared, Wayland dismounted and took the tin pan forward, slowly beating it again in the way he had been shown. The thyrs eyed them all as they approached, but did not threaten.
“Wood man, sell us your tump!” one called out. Wayland called a halt and got out his scale, but the coins they offered turned out to be distinct and well formed. They pitched them together and bought four of the large jars.
“No more,” he told them. “The rest goes up to the old town.” They held the grips of their swords as they rode off again, but one look behind showed that the thyrs had already began drinking, and seemed to have gotten what they wanted.
“This tap is the call used to trade,” Wayland told Johnas Tygus and Leofind, before he stowed the pan back away. “Let’s try to make some good time now. We’ll have to stop tonight though, and when we do, there will be no keeping them away.”
They followed the road, passing some more old watch towers, robbed mostly of their stone to their bases. They once came around a corner and saw a goblin beating another to death with a rock. The killer saw them and scurried away, leaving his victim there for them to pass. Later an old hen goblin sat by the road, weeping on a stone. Wayland threw her some hard bread and she took it and went away.
It started to go toward evening, with the road straightening out as it went through the high ground around Lake Aven. There were rock fences, and some pasturing on the better grass. They saw goblins moving about freely, unconcerned, but watching them from a distance as they went by. The land became more forested, and a haze was visible, riding the wind from the great lake and the swamplands that lay out to the west. The trees were all heavily cropped by axes, as if wood was scarce and hard to come by.
When it started to get dark Wayland picked a high ground off the road and they unpacked the ponies and hobbled the lot. Instead of building a fire, they stood out in a ring and watched the vastness go dark and alarmingly light up with bright dots of many pot-fires. It wasn’t long after that a group of goblins approached and began tapping, wanting to trade with them. Wayland tapped back, letting them know they could approach.
Wayland lit two torches and set them into the rocks, then got out his scales and his bowls. The monsters knew a collection of words in Gecic, and a language that was used solely in the Priwak, on the lake, and in the swamp, consisting of old Mancan words and pitched grunts. Wayland had rehearsed some useful words, and used them now to flavor the talk and build confidence. His last customer was a smaller troll who bought a caldron, some salt, and a handful of glass beads.
As it lumbered away the others relaxed. Wayland mused that the creatures seemed ignorant of the actual value of the things they used and traded for. Three needles and a thimble were as like to be paid for with black coins as silver or a spot of gold. So went the proceeds of their raiding, from the pain and theft they visited on others. The creatures seemed to be flush right now in the silver that had come from the sack of the Stone Pile, trading back and forth freely with it. He wondered how it would go when it was finally all spent, and the creatures broke and angry.
He put out the torches and they never made a fire. Half of them ate while the other half stood watch. Wayland had instructed them all to be careful of what they said, so conversation was brief, and drifted off on paths of little consequence. There was a great deal of tension in all the men, but the monsters around them seemed uncaring. The power in all situations had shifted over to the other side.
As he ate a piece of hard bread and some beans in pork fat, Johnas Tygus turned his attention over to Wulman. “I have twin sisters named Ana and Pela,” he said. “Neither of them can shoot a bow, nor wear a suit of armor. Ana’s full name is Anatazah. They say it means apple in Golok, and that it is what the horsemen name the daughters they consider lucky, or pretty.”
“I’ve heard that too, but in the case of my sister, never was one so sour,” Wulman replied. “She pulled hair and had a loud mouth when she was younger, then one day she wandered out into the training yard and picked up a sword. It was a scandal.” He shrugged. “But living so close to the Priwak, you see things happen every day that you should not. At some point everybody wants to pick up a sword and get some revenge.”
“A lot is to be said for her strength though,” Johnas continued, undaunted. “There will eventually be an abundance of unwed daughters and widows in Gece, if the Sund and Goloks have their way on the Golden Slope. The yard will be full of birds then for the hawks to choose from.”
Wulman shrugged and pulled the fat out of his wispy moustache, then licked his fingers. “Fancy names often disappoint,” he said. “Tazah had a suitor a year ago, from up near Zhury. They favor strength there, but he made the mistake of sending her a vase full of polished tin roses as a gift. She took it as an insult. There’s Sascha though, and for all of his faults, he may have finally climbed over the right wall.” He had pointedly not mentioned Johnas’ attention or his time with her at all.
“It can be said that some lines need more strength and consistency,” Johnas considered. “My father lamented to me several times of how he felt that the older generations of our family had not married into strength, or for the good of the house, but aimed for a soft bed and easy life. Doing this has manifested itself in our current generations.”
No one wanted to agree or make a comment against the lords of Grotoy, or about Rydol, and so the conversation ended. The guard changed and the others were soon eating.
“It was called Wauxs once, and was one of the five great proofs of the divinity of the Mancan emperor,” Johnas said. “It was given as evidence of the right for the great families to rule. They sealed in the magic and evil of Lake Aven with their manpower and knowledge. Every five years the emperor himself would come up this road or one just like it on a pilgrimage with his court to the lake and call out a prayer to keep the evil in the swamp at bay.”
“I’ve heard they had fire mages, keeping watch and helping to defend,” Leofind added. “My order traces its history back to them.”
“At one time Warukz had a great rampart surrounding a central fortress,” Johnas continued. “No one could get in or out without the legion’s say. Great campaigns would be undertaken from there every two to three years to patrol and clean out the swamp.”
“But it didn’t last, did it?” the squire Gatan stated.
“No,” he said, “but if you had asked a Mancan citizen living during the empire, they would have answered yes.” Johnas sighed out and rested back against a stone. “There hasn’t been a stone raised there by men to build in over eight hundred years, and many have been taken away. When we see it, we will know.”
They looked out past the ponies and horses, at the backs of the other men, watching the ground, the hills and rocks that lay out beyond them in the dark. Sounds came out of the night, of footsteps, of rocks falling, and of distant fighting. The pot fires winked on and off like eyes, and sometimes shut. The night was long, and no one really slept.
CHAPTER THIRTY
WAYLAND
THE VILLAGE ON THE EDGE OF THE DIMM
As dawn came up over the mountains they all stood up, stretched themselves, and then looked about the hills. Sir Byrning built a fire and turned the beans left in the pot around to heat them up. If they had been somewhere else, Wayland might have gone out and tried to buy eggs from a farm. He couldn’t do that here, and he suspected the buggers were less picky about where their eggs came from.
The ponies and horses were spooked, and all the men were tired and on edge. They watered from a spring in the hillside and fed the animals oats, and then packed them all up again. A goblin scurried by on a trail and only gave them a passing glance. Wayland checked the draw on his sword and then he continued packing. They were soon all mounted up and moving out, back onto the old road.
“When we get into the town, we’ll set up and sell everything we can but the wine,” Wayland told them. “Then we’ll go around and look for our people. Chances are the ones we want to talk to will come out and find us.” He hoped it would be as easy as that, but he doubted it. There was a complication in what was going on in Warukz that the goblins had hinted at, that he couldn’t see all the sides of it yet. He suspected he would have to figure it out and deal with it when they got there.
The road ran over the hills past neglected pastures, with holes in the fields where buildings had once stood but long ago been removed. Round pole lodges with thatched roofs were the main type of house they saw, most located far off the road, the smoke from their fires slowly rising up off them.
They were stopped by goblins three more times. It was always wine, tump, salt, or a pot. It was during one of these stops that it happened. One of the goblins on the periphery of the others reached out and grabbed a small item that had been put out and ran off with it. Sir Byrning reached into a loose bag at his waist and drew out a length of chain with some small iron balls at the ends. He spun it around twice and released it at the feet of the goblin, but he missed and it struck the base of a tree instead. Wulman went so far as to start to draw his bow on the goblin with a stiff creak, as he had probably done a hundred times before. The others goblins watching his growled, and everyone tensed. Wayland reached over and tapped Wulman on his shoulder.
“Let him go,” he said to him. “This was bound to happen.” Wulman released the tension on his bow and put the arrow away. Wayland laughed, and a couple of the goblins began to chuckle along with him. The group went away then, without making more problems, but it had been a close thing.
They walked the horses after that for about an hour, checking for signs that a reprisal or attack might come. Though the theft had been a minor thing, and was to be expected even in the street of Kavvar, there were no laws or order keeping the goblins back. And they were easily and irrationally angered, so that a minor theft or thing against them could turn into a bloodbath. The only restraint was based on the knowledge that the trickle of goods coming into the land would stop if the traders considered it too dangerous. From what Wayland understood, there was plenty of meat and loot in the caves, so theft right now was not a priority. A trip to the area during hard times though, would be suicidal.
The road crested over some better cared for pieces of ground, and he saw a troll nearby, filling up a cart with fire wood and potatoes. There was a defensive rock wall around a small village off the road, with the tops of about twenty huts visible there. He and the troll exchanged stares for a moment as he walked his horse by him, and then they both went back to their own business.
The land dropped down soon after that toward the lake, and from there under the afternoon sun, Lake Aven sat to the west like a great, old silver mirror, dully reflecting back the sky. In the near distance they could also see Warukz, its great walls all long gone, but with the cobbles and shapes of the streets still visible in places, and some of the foundations remaining. The moats were now a long series of depressions, with one small pond remaining at an old corner. The rest was filled up with rubble and soil, and sown in places with weedy patches of corn or barley.
In the middle of the old foundations, perhaps where the main bastion or temple had once stood were several groups of huts spaced upon a grassy rise, it roughly divided by streets into four small boroughs. On one corner of the rise was a hall, made of planking and wattle, covered over with a slate roof. There were many goblins about it, some doing work, some walking around in the process of doing chores. Others seemed aimless or drunk, and two were just then fighting with each other. Wayland had not thought that such a plan or community could be maintained by the beasts, but here was evidence of some formidable organization.
They had a way to go yet, in a long descent down through a gauntlet of possible dangers. There were a half dozen little clumps of farmsteads between them and the old town, mostly stretched along a ramp of rock and earth that descended to connect together the little humps and headlands on the lake shore. A small band of goblin braves fell in beside them, in a show of order from the chief who was in charge. Before them were groups of buggers waiting along the road, and Wayland approached the first group with some anxiety about what might happen. He didn’t need the tin pan now, and the braves shouted at the first group and brandished their spears, so that they prevented them from coming any closer. It appeared there would be no forestalling this close to the market, or that the buggers in the old town wanted their pick of the things first.
The goblins watched them pass and then either followed, or moved away to returned to their own business. They came down the old road and turned their horses and ponies out into a large, roughed out square of ground on one side of the hall and halted there. Across from them another group of traders, from the Golok March by the look of them, were set up and selling the same types of things.
“Unpack everything and put it out,” Wayland told the men. “I’ll go to the hall and talk to the head of the beasts here.” He passed his reins to Wulman, and signaled for Sir Bryning to accompany him on inside. They went over to the door, passing by a couple of goblins who appeared to be on guard, and a rather dour looking troll. The monster sat on a small keg by the door with a pair of swords, looking about it in boredom. Wayland did not stare, but Sir Byrning did, and then they were on inside the hall.
Rough trestles and mead benches sat about, split from logs and planed out flat. There was a fire pit hearth at the center of the hal
l, with steaming pots and trivets cooking over it. A raised platform for the lord stood at the other end, with a loft above it for sleeping, and a pair of doors going to rooms. Wayland thought he might have stepped into some provincial hall in Tolwind or Wellund, so familiar was the crafting of it. It smelled new though, while the others had smelled old and well used.
A pig snouted goblin in a leather coat studded in bronze and decorated with bands of silk watched him as he came over to stand before the platform. The monster pushed another goblin, Wayland though a female, away and looked down at him.
“Why are you back here?” It asked him, as it looked down at him. Wayland nodded up to the goblin.
“I have just come across the hills, your grace. I wanted to pay my respects to you before I set up to trade.” He signaled to Sir Bryning, and the knight placed a sack of salt and a jar of wine onto the wood at the creature’s feet.
“Ah, another wood man has come here to trade,” it said. “Do you have any tump? I will buy it all.” It reached down and picked up the jar of wine, sniffed at the contents and smiled, showing its tusks. Wayland decided he was addressing Weech, the chief of the Water Dogs.
“I do not have any, but I do have plenty of wine instead,” Wayland replied. “There was another matter I also wanted to talk to you about. In the West Lands a stone man named Kassal sent his reeves around and gathered up all the traders, and made them knuckle down to him. He threatened to put us all in his dungeon.” The creature looked at him, its yellow eyes getting larger, dancing over his face and clothes as it considered the words.
“I know of Kassal,” the goblin chief said. “I fought him outside Fugoe while the trolls took the castle there. He gave up quicker than I thought he would. ” There was no hesitation or fear in its voice, as if it was assured here of its own security against the lords of the West Lands.
A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight Page 55