The Goblin War

by Hilari Bell

  However small the chance, it was the best idea he had. He took off his belt and began scraping at the base of one of the bars, where it shouldn’t be too obvious in the daylight.

  His eyelids were drooping as the shock of the beating added itself to the residual weariness of his long illness. But sleeping through the day would have the added benefit of making him look sicker than he really was. And if he began tiring, Tobin told himself firmly, all he had to do was think about what the barbarians planned for him, and he’d wake right—

  “I see it takes more than a few bruises to stop you. That’s good. For my sake as well as yours.”

  It was the one-eyed man. Tobin’s hand closed instinctively over the buckle—though if One-Eye had approached so quietly that Tobin hadn’t heard him, he might have been watching for some time.

  “Put your belt back on,” One-Eye said, confirming his guess. “If you’re going to vanish, all your clothing should disappear with you. It’s more dramatic that way, and as a storyteller . . . Well, drama can make the difference between success and disbelief.”

  Tobin’s mind spun, but he grasped the important point. “I’m going to vanish?”

  “Into the air, like water poured on rocks under the desert sun. Of course, they expect you to escape eventually.”

  Tobin blinked. Either he’d been hit on the head harder than he thought or this conversation was taking some odd turns. “They do?”

  “They do. Like this.” One-Eye grabbed one of the cage bars and pulled. It snapped like a rotten twig.

  Tobin was so startled he didn’t even move. “How did you . . . ? Why . . . ?”

  “This bar is always rigged to break. In a few days, one of them, in the process of taunting you, would crack it with his spear. You’d be stiff and weaker by then.” The old man worked the bottom of the bar free of the frame. “That night they would watch from the shadows, waiting for the moment you picked up a weapon. Can you get out now, if I give you a hand?”

  Tobin hesitated. This whole conversation made no sense—but he couldn’t be worse off out of the cage than he was inside it. He thrust his head and shoulders through the bars and squirmed.

  “Go back to the part where they expect me to escape. Why?”

  The old man grabbed his shoulders and pulled, then kept his hold so that when Tobin’s feet were free, they swung to the ground, which kept him from falling headfirst.

  “That part’s a bit complicated,” One-Eye said. “Let me take you somewhere we can talk.”

  If it hadn’t been for his throbbing bruises, walking through the center of the sleeping camp would have felt like a dream. The old man stopped beside the glowing embers of a cook fire and lit a candle stub he pulled from his pocket. To Tobin, the light seemed to present more danger than it was worth, but the stranger had kept him safe so far. The surreal feeling increased when One-Eye led Tobin into one of the largest tents and carefully closed the flaps. Tobin stared around him at racks of swords, chests full of spears, and more racks of the short, curved bows that could send an arrow twice as far as the longbows of the Realm’s foot soldiers.

  “Now I know I’m dreaming,” Tobin said. “You’re going to give me a weapon?”

  “Not at all,” said One-Eye. “I’m going to explain why you must never take any of these weapons, or any other, and also what makes this the perfect place for you to hide—at least till the first search is over.”

  The need to flee into the night pulsed through Tobin’s blood. And curiosity was his brother’s fatal flaw, not his. Tobin was the practical one. But there was something about the old man’s steady gaze . . .

  Tobin sat down on one of the spear crates. “I’m listening.”

  “You heard Rocza this afternoon, saying that there were ways of getting the blood trust away from you?”

  “Yes, and I know you can’t kill me as long as I wear it. Though I don’t understand . . . Wait a minute. How can you understand me now, when you didn’t earlier?”

  One-Eye opened his shirt, displaying the now-familiar copper round. “They keep these here as well, what few spares we have. Only warriors, the Duri, are entitled to wear them, but I stole this one long ago. I knew that one day I would need it—it took the fools longer than I expected to bring in a Softer knight—but we don’t have time for that tale now. The only way to take someone’s blood trust from them, without violating sacred law, is to convince them to challenge you. If two people are determined to fight, the blood-trust laws don’t strictly forbid it.”

  Tobin remembered another shred of conversation from the morning. “So if I came at one of your warriors with a weapon in hand, that would be a challenge and they could fight me, even though I’m wearing the amulet?”

  “Yes, and if they succeed in disarming you, or kill you, then your amulet is forfeit. Which is why so few warriors are willing to challenge each other—the penalty for losing is too serious to risk lightly.”

  It made a twisted sort of sense.

  “Is that why they set things up so I can escape? They figure I’ll find or steal a weapon and fight them. Then, when they win, they can take the amulet and kill me at will?”

  “Exactly.” One-Eye nodded encouragement. “And I’m glad to see that blow didn’t damage your wits. You’ll need them in the next few days.”

  “Then why bring me here,” Tobin asked, “if you’re not giving me a weapon?”

  “Because this is the first place those who escape are expected to go.” The gleam in the old man’s remaining eye reminded Tobin of Jeriah at his worst, and his misgivings increased. “By the time they’re shown the flawed bar, they’ve watched people going into this tent empty-handed and leaving with weapons often enough to know what’s stored here. So this is the first place searchers will look for you, and when they don’t find you—”

  “Why won’t they find me?”

  “Because . . . Here, I’ll show you.”

  One-Eye opened a crate of spears and began pulling them out. “They’ll expect you to spring out at them with a weapon, especially in here, so they’re not likely to look very hard. And even if they did . . .” He lifted up the bottom of the long crate. But it wasn’t the bottom, Tobin saw as he peered inside. It was a false bottom that covered a space that might well hold a man—if he hadn’t eaten much for the last few months, and maybe held his breath.

  “You’ve been planning this a long time,” said Tobin, staring at the well-made secret compartment. “Why?”

  For the first time, One-Eye hesitated.

  “Our blood trust—you call them amulets, as if that was all they are—do you know how they’re made?’

  “I’ve heard it involves human sacrifice,” said Tobin. “And I’ve seen nothing to change my mind.”

  “Human sacrifice,” the storyteller repeated, as though the concept was strange to him. Did that phrase come to his mind with multiple connotations, as so many of his words did to Tobin? “That’s part of it, but really the least part. The human death is only a carrier for the magic of the spirit.”

  “Explain,” said Tobin. “Quickly.”

  “Still not made up your mind? Then listen carefully, for there are things you need to know if you plan to flee. To make these amulets, our shamans must first capture a spirit. Which isn’t as easy as it used to be, for they know the fate they’ll meet at our hands. At this moment no one has even located a spirit, which gives us a bit of time.”

  “More quickly,” Tobin said. He didn’t know how many hours remained till dawn, but if he was going to run—which seemed a lot smarter than hiding in a chest in the middle of the barbarians’ camp!—he wanted to do it long before sunrise.

  “It takes the time it takes,” the storyteller said reprovingly. “All of this is important. And the more you interrupt me, the—”

  “All right, go on.”

  The storyteller seated himself on a chest with unnecessary deliberation. “To sum the matter up, the shamans must capture a spirit, and also a human they’re willing to
kill. As the molten copper is poured to make the medallion, they open the human’s veins. His death—his knowledge of his impending death is part of what makes this possible—opens up a void in his body so the shamans can force the spirit into it.”

  The hair on the back of Tobin’s neck had risen. “They force a spirit to occupy a human body? While the human’s still in it?”

  “It appears to be painful for both of them,” the storyteller confirmed. “But the fact that the human is dying somehow makes it possible. And when a spirit is bound in a body of flesh and blood, it dies too. The blood must quench the medallions while the human-spirit is still alive, for only while it lives will the spirit’s magic transform simple copper to a thing of power. So the bleeding out is made to last as long as possible, that more trusts can be awakened.”

  Tobin’s stomach was rolling. This was worse than cannibalism. “Then you don’t eat people after all?”

  “Oh, yes. As soon as the body dies, our warriors eat the flesh. It’s consuming that flesh, which still holds part of the spirit’s magic, that awakens/ignites/restores their inborn power.”

  Tobin rose abruptly to his feet. “Thanks for warning me about the weapons. I’ll make sure not to pick one up if I’m captured.”

  “You will be captured,” the storyteller said calmly. “One of the powers that are kindled in our Duri is the ability to sense . . . the shamans call it ‘disruptions in the magical field.’ They can sense the presence of a blood-trust medallion several hundred yards away. Some can sense them even farther off. So as soon as one of the searchers passes anywhere near you, they’ll know you’re there, and in approximately which direction. It would be much harder for me to free you a second time.”

  “So I’ll take off the amulet. . . . Oh.” If he wore the amulet, they could use it to find him. But if he took it off and they caught him without it, he would die as soon as they captured a spirit. Or maybe before, if another prisoner was taken and they no longer needed him. And Tobin had no way of knowing if anything he’d just been told was true, either.

  “But if I hide in the chest, won’t they sense my amulet and find me instantly?”

  “There are half a dozen amulets stored in this room,” the storyteller said. “Hundreds within sensing distance, and thousands in the greater camp, which those with the farthest-reaching senses might detect. I’m told it’s like trying to pick the scent of one flower out of a bouquet, or one voice out of the chatter of a crowd. Whereas if you’re walking through empty country with just a few companions, and a voice comes to you from another direction, you hear it clearly. Do you see?”

  Tobin did. “So if I stay here, my amulet will be one of a crowd and not noticeable. But what about the rest of me?”

  “I have a plan for that,” the storyteller told him. “We can dye your hair and skin and dress you as chanduri. No one really looks at the chan, anyway. And there’s one other thing I can do. As I said, I’ve been planning this for some time.”

  “Why?” Tobin asked again. And this time it was the only question that mattered.

  “When we have prisoners,” said One-Eye slowly, “we keep them for making the trusts. Sometimes they dwell in that cage for months, until a spirit can be found and snared. But have you thought about what we do for the human part of the trust if we don’t have a prisoner? We made thousands of trusts before we went to war with you.”

  The horror of the only possible answer shocked Tobin even more. It was one thing to kill an enemy, no matter how vile the method. To murder your own people . . .

  “I was born with only one working eye,” the old man went on softly. “So I could never be a warrior, never Duri. I became the tradition/history keeper because that’s the most worthy position any chan can achieve. The Duri spoke to me as an equal—superior to the younger warriors when I trained them to honor our laws. And for years, watching those too old to work go under the knife, I thought I’d made myself safe. But I am now over sixty years, and there’s a young storyteller in another camp who listens very carefully to my histories. Softer, if I can get you back to your own people, will you take me with you? And keep them from killing me until I can demonstrate how useful my information could be?”

  Tobin considered. If the old man was telling the truth, his motives made perfect sense. Sense enough for Tobin to trust him with his life? A barbarian guide and helper would give him a far better chance to escape. One-Eye hadn’t had to let him out of that cage. If Tobin had found that cracked bar in a few more nights, stiff and weakened by repeated beatings, he’d have grabbed the first weapon he could lay hands on. He sorted carefully through his memories of the barbarian camp—he’d watched them for most of the day—and he didn’t remember seeing any old people.

  “Yes,” said Tobin, making up his mind. “If you can get me over the border alive, I’ll take you with me. When do I have to get into that box?”

  One-Eye told him not to climb in till his escape was discovered, since he’d have to stay there till the search had moved out of camp, and maybe for some time afterward.

  He showed Tobin the trick he’d worked out, filling the chest’s lid with spears and then looping a string through the catch. Tobin could lie down in the box, settle the false bottom on top of him, and then pull the lid closed, tipping the spears into the chest.

  They practiced it several times before the old man was certain Tobin wouldn’t pull the string too fast or too slowly. Then the storyteller departed, saying it would be better if the alarm found him sleeping in his own bed than lurking in a weapons storage tent where he had no business.

  He took the candle with him, so Tobin pulled the tent flap a little wider and let his eyes adjust to the darkness.

  The temptation to snatch up a weapon and run was strong, but the storyteller had no motive for lying that he could see. What would it be like to spend your whole life knowing that when you grew old, your own people would kill you, in a horribly painful way, just so their warriors could steal some sort of magical power? And what kind of power did the spirits’ magic and death give them?

  Tobin had spent two winters with the army on the border, and he’d heard plenty of rumors about “invincible” barbarian magic. He’d seen battle only once, when a party of barbarians had tried to raid an area that his troop patrolled. He’d exchanged sword blows with several of their warriors, and though they were very strong, they hadn’t been impossible to fight. Fiddle had knocked their smaller horses out of his way, and they’d bled when his sword got through their guards.

  And they could be killed, for he’d seen their bodies on the ground when the battle was over. Not many bodies, not nearly as many as his troop had left there, but they weren’t immortal. His commander said that the sheer screaming frenzy with which they fought protected them, but knowing what he knew now, Tobin wondered. Did this blood trust really give supernatural powers to the barbarian . . . Duri? . . . warriors?

  Tobin had always felt awkward calling them barbarians, but he’d known no other name for them. Now that he did, barbarian sounded like the perfect description.

  The trick with the chest worked perfectly. The sun was just rising when Tobin heard the first shouts, and it was the work of seconds to climb into the box and pull the string to bring the spears clattering down on top of him.

  It was far harder to lie still, with his heart hammering and sweat pouring off his body. He held his breath when he heard voices coming into the tent, though even the amulet’s translation didn’t let more than a few words though the muffling wood and the beating of his own pulse in his ears.

  He felt the box’s lid rise and then slam shut an instant later. Other lids opened and closed. The voices left.

  Tobin could have pushed up the false bottom and the lid from inside, but it would have sent spears clattering to the earth. He didn’t dare make so much noise in an “empty” tent.

  It felt like he spent years in the small, cramped space. But finally someone lifted the lid, then removed the spears quietly, so Tob
in knew it was One-Eye long before the false bottom was whisked away.

  The slanting sunlight of midmorning was shining through the tent flap.

  “Very good!” the old man murmured. “They’re searching outside the camp now, and they’ve sent most of the women out to search nearby, so we’ve got some time. I even managed to get myself assigned to spread the news of your escape. It’s all going perfectly.”

  Tobin didn’t think that having every barbarian in the army searching for him was at all perfect, but he’d already chosen to place his life in this man’s hands. And while he’d hidden in that box, waiting, another question had occurred to him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Vruud,” the older man replied. “I wonder if it would be safer to dye your hair and change your clothes in here. I’d planned to do it in the woods, outside of camp, but I didn’t expect the place to be this deserted.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask what my name is?” Tobin demanded.

  “Softer, I don’t care. Did you think I was doing this for your sake? I’ll get you back to your Realm, and you’ll convince them not to kill me when we get there. That’s all that matters to me.”

  Chapter 3

  Jeriah

  “DO YOU HAVE TO LEAVE so soon?” Jeriah’s father asked. “You’ve only been here a few days.”

  It was very different from the last time his father had come to the stable to see Jeriah off. He’d been banished from the estate then—so even this mild protest against his leaving constituted a vast improvement in their relationship.

  Telling his father the truth about what both he and Tobin had been doing over the past six months had been the right thing to do, but there was still strain between them.

  “I need to get back to the palace, sir. That’s where the goblins will look for me when they get back from the Otherworld. And if Tobin hasn’t turned up in another week or so, I’ll have to go find out why.”

  His father nodded, but more slowly than Jeriah had expected. “You mean to go into this Otherworld in search of him? I’ve no mind to lose both my sons there.”