“What is it?”
One Stone shook his head. “Something to do with the fort.”
“That…doesn’t make sense. It’s almost winter. There’s nothing to be had there. No gold, no horses.”
“It’s not over. Whatever Chief Gelid is planning with the tribesmen is going to happen tonight. And Noe has agreed to all of it.”
Chapter Fifty
She crouched behind One Stone as he peered around the side of the tent.
“We should just walk in there,” One Stone said. “Noe will listen.”
“Not if Chief Gelid is with her. If he sees me trying to get to her, I don’t know what he’ll do to me, but it won’t be good.”
“Well, I don’t see him or hear him.”
She pulled her hood on and looked. The wagon where the goblins had been napping was empty. There was no one in sight. “All right. Let’s go inside.”
The interior of the tent was a mess. Papers and books and a trunk full of clothes were all dumped out on the ground. Arens was busy sifting through a cloth-wrapped bundle of pens and pencils, tossing each aside after inspecting it. No one else was inside.
His spear lay on the floor of the tent next to him. It had blood on the steel tip.
Next to a cot lay the dead commander of the zealots, Captain August.
Thistle kept her head low and waited at the entrance as One Stone hesitated. She gave him a push.
One Stone stumbled forward. “Where’s Noe and Gelid?”
“They’re gone. What are you doing in here, One Stone? You’re supposed to be getting the supplies ready.” Arens sniffed the air. “Who is that behind you? Thistle, what are you doing here? Why are you not back at the fort?”
Thistle tried to speak calmly. “We need Noe. Can you bring her here?”
Arens set down the bundle and sneered. “One Stone, go wait by the horses. Time I taught this whelp a lesson. After the tragedy of this day, setting you right will bring comfort.”
“There’s no time for this. I need—”
“It’s all about you, isn’t it? After everything our village suffered because of the sage, all you can think about is yourself. Ramus protected you from Noe for the sake of your father. Now they’re both gone, and still you act the disobedient child. You’ll learn to speak only when answering and to know your place. Now come here.”
She didn’t move. As he came for her, she began to back out of the tent.
One Stone planted a hand on his chest.
“Step aside,” Arens said.
“You’re no officer here. You have as much right to give orders as me. Or her.”
Arens laughed. “You think you’re actually chief of Boarhead? I’m the last adult hunter still alive. It’s going to be me. Now get your hand off me.”
One Stone gave him a push. When Arens tried to shove him back, One Stone grappled with him and got him to the floor.
“Get off!”
“I’ve fought and killed and defended our kind. I’m a studded hunter and now I’m a warrior. You say Ramus protected Thistle? Well, he protected you, too. He was at the front of every charge. I don’t remember seeing you until the battles were over. You have a sick heart. And you’ll not lay a hand on Thistle. She has a right to be here. And if you’re not careful, she’ll remember you and what sort of goblin you were so all will know about you.”
Thistle pulled One Stone off Arens. “This isn’t necessary. We’ll mourn Ramus together. We share the bond of having lost Boarhead. Arens, all I need to know is where Noe is.”
Arens brushed himself off and pushed past them. “Chief Gelid will hear about this.” He stormed out of the tent.
“Should I stop him?” One Stone asked.
“I don’t want us to fight each other. I’ll leave.”
She paused as she saw the table where the maps had been spread. There were a few pieces of paper with writing that caught her attention. The ink was fresh. As she examined each page in turn, she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
The small, precise handwriting reminded her of her own well-practiced script.
To the Pinnacle forces within North Fort.
I, Captain August, of Lord Pater’s army, send my greetings.
To the servants of Pinnacle, soldiers, and officers unmet,
Greetings from August, defender of the Holy Three, and humble servant of Pater whom you call Zealot.
To a worthy foe.
We, the servants of Pater whom you call Zealot, send our greetings.
With each line, the handwriting grew smoother and the strokes of the pen more confident. There were faint dirt smudges on the page.
“What was going on here?” Thistle asked.
“I don’t know. Hurry up with that.”
A longer page beneath had drips of black along the top where the pen hadn’t been sufficiently tapped free of its excess ink.
To the officer in charge of Pinnacle forces within North Fort,
Greetings from Captain August of the Empire of the Inland Sea, Loyal Servant of Pater, Defender of the Holy Three.
My apologies for not knowing your name.
At this time, in this month of pressing cold, much blood has been spilled, both mine and yours. I am offering you terms of release from these lands, along with your life, your men’s lives, and any animals and provisions you can carry away from the fort.
We have both suffered much.
I offer you a temporary truce which holds no binding obligation between our two parties except to allow mercy to run her course and give you the opportunity to return to your own home. The tribal mercenaries will stand down to allow your departure.
This letter is a guarantee of safety. I give you my word as a faithful son of the Empire of the Inland Sea that you will be unmolested if you take your leave. Claim your lives as a spoil. Accept this as an overture of goodwill upon which we can build a future peace between our two governments.
I will await a message in reply or, at dawn tomorrow, throw open your gates.
The word “spoil” had a broad thumbprint in it that made the word almost unreadable. The writer must have abandoned the copy and started over again. Thistle looked closer. A man’s thumb and a goblin’s thumb weren’t that different.
She went to check the dead captain.
August’s face was serene as he stared lifelessly up at the roof of the tent. A blow had staved in his skull above one ear. She hesitated before examining him closer. While he had blood on him and his uniform was soiled, it was his hands that surprised her. They were clean. No ink on any of his fingers. But there were a few black smears on the cuff of his right sleeve. He had done his own writing, at least some of the time.
This meant someone else’s thumb had smudged the ink.
She found another piece of paper on the ground. Here was a tight script different from the pages on the table. The daily report marking the weather and the enemy disposition within the fort was brief, with little activity in the fort worth noting. Captain August’s signature marked the bottom with a flourish under the name.
The practice lines hadn’t been penned by him.
Noe. It had to be.
“Thistle,” One Stone said.
But before she could reply, a group of goblin warriors pushed him aside. Chief Gelid entered the tent, his eyes narrowing as he spotted her.
“I told you,” Arens said. “I told you she was here.”
Thistle couldn’t hide the fear in her voice. “What are you planning? Where’s Noe?”
“Up until now, your interference has been an irritant,” Gelid said. “Now you stand in the way of our success.”
He motioned to the warriors flanking him. One Stone said nothing as he was shoved aside.
“Restrain her and put her with the baggage.”
“Don’t do this. The men in the fort will leave, if you let them. There’s no need to trick them. There doesn’t have to be any more bloodshed.”
“Enough words out of you.”
Arens grinned. “Let me take care of her, Chief Gelid. She won’t be a problem to you anymore.”
“You’d have every human our enemy,” Thistle said.
Gelid smiled, showing his sharp teeth. “It’s never been any other way.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Arens’s spear was still at her feet where he had left it. As Arens came towards her, she snatched it up.
“Put that down,” Gelid said.
She wanted to grab the forged letters but Arens was too close. She thrust the spear in his direction, forcing him to back away. She then pointed the spear at the nearest of Gelid’s warriors.
“Stay away from me!”
“I’ll see you banished for this,” Arens said.
“We’ve banished ourselves out here. No one in Athra would want this. It’s madness.”
“Give me my spear.”
“Try to take it and I’ll hurt you.”
“You’d threaten your kind?” Gelid asked.
Both the chief’s goblins appeared to be waiting for an order. Arens stayed back as she clumsily moved the point of the spear tip back and forth between them. But she held no hope of holding them off once they made their move.
The tent wall behind her was a joined pair of large flaps tied at a seam. She spun and slashed at the cords holding it together. Fortunately, Arens kept his spear sharp. It cut the tent open with a single slash. She threw the spear aside and dove through the gap.
The goblins behind her were shouting. She sprinted between the nearest tents as other goblins watched in confusion. If it became an open chase, they would catch her. She needed an edge to have any chance of escape. She headed to where One Stone had been loading the packhorses.
The staging area held a half dozen goblins who moved out of the way as she came running.
“Stop her!” one of Gelid’s warriors called.
She came up to the side of one of the animals. A few hitches held the bundles on the beast’s back. She undid a knot and began working the rope. It began to loosen, but the load wasn’t moving as she tried to push it off. The horse snorted and began to turn away from her. She had little experience with the animals. After being kidnapped by Lord, she had been forced to ride quite a distance, but a human had always been in control of the mount.
“Easy, easy,” she said, trying to calm the horse.
The beast ignored her.
The goblins chasing her would be on her in seconds. There was no time. She undid the reins from a wood rail, climbed on top of a sack, and jumped to the bundles fastened to the horse.
“Hiyah!”
The horse bolted. She clung to the cords holding the supplies as the beast rocketed forward, but then the baggage began to shift. The load was about to fall with her on it.
“Wait! Slow down!”
The horse continued to thunder forward. It ran to the edge of the grassy clearing, heading for the road.
Beneath her, the sacks slid. She had to jump for the animal’s neck. With one hand she gripped the mane. With the other she tried to grab the reins, but they dangled before the horse and were out of her reach.
The animal made the road and continued to gallop. It was heading in the opposite direction of the fort.
“Stop! Whoa!”
None of the commands she had heard the humans use were working. The riders she had seen kept their feet in the stirrups and a hand gripping the rein. She had neither. The panicked horse didn’t recognize her as anything more than a frightening weight on its neck and it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.
The animal was moving past trees now. She had no choice. She jumped. Branches and sharp shrubs stabbed at her as she tumbled to the ground. The horse kept going, vanishing along the road.
Thistle paused for a moment to regain her bearings. Her head was ringing.
Gelid’s warriors might use the other horse to catch her. Some goblins could ride. They also might be running her way. She couldn’t chance being caught. She fumbled her way through a dry thicket, limbs snapping and vegetation crunching beneath her feet. She was making too much noise. No hunter would have any problem locating such clumsy prey. She made it to clear ground beneath the pine trees where she could run. A sharp pain in her right heel made her wince. She hadn’t noticed it before. Perhaps she had landed on it wrong.
She cursed the horse, Gelid, Noe, and the goblins who followed them. She spat a wad of blood from her mouth. So thirsty.
Noe had too big of a head start. She would make the fort well before Thistle ever could.
Would Kel fall for such a ruse? The truth was Thistle had no idea. All his talk about following orders might have been a show. But she had seen the man in action. He wouldn’t do anything to endanger the soldiers under his command. His only fear had been falling into the hands of the tribesmen. And if he believed they were under the orders of the zealots, he would be tempted to take the false deal.
What if Noe and Gelid’s plan meant their raid was at an end? Once the tribesmen went back to their mountains, the land around Athra would be largely free of humans. Goblinkind would have their victory and would sing of the raid as a triumph.
But the math of having two enemies rather than one was so simple a child in their first years could understand it. The zealots wouldn’t forget. And Pinnacle would eventually hear of what the goblins had done.
Thistle forced herself to ignore the pain in her foot and began to hurry.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The fort was suspiciously quiet.
As Thistle watched from the perch they had used to survey the place, she saw a small team of goblins approaching the gate with buckets filled with water and bundles of wood. They were let inside by one of the Pinnacle men.
Three other goblins were sitting on top of the closest bunker. Their breath was white in the chill air. No tribesmen were in sight. The three weren’t part of Gelid’s band. At least two she recognized as patients she had treated. Now they were being used as sentries. Had Wren put them out there or had Noe returned?
She was about to slide down the slope when she saw a runner come up the road. The warrior paused to give a bird call and then marched to the gate. After a pause, the gate opened.
The sentries, and now the fast response to the bird call—she had to assume Noe was inside and the goblins were ready for something. The messenger could only mean one thing: word had gotten to her that Thistle knew of the plan and couldn’t be trusted.
If she went to the gate, she believed she would be let in. But could she get to Kel before being caught? Would any of the soldiers of the fort stop the goblins if they restrained her or worse? Kel might be moved to kick all the goblins out if Thistle caused enough of a stir. But that raised the possibility that his nervous defenders would fire on them.
She refused to be the reason for more bloodshed.
Throw open your gates at dawn, the forged letter had said.
She had time. As she shivered, a fragile plan formed in her mind. Her notebook was down to one side of its last page. Writing was problematic, as her fingers refused to cooperate. She had to pause to rub feeling back in her hands. But even as the daylight faded, she finished. The words, at least, had come easily.
Again the gates opened. The goblin sentries were changed. Another messenger came up the road even as the first departed and ran from the fort.
Was Kel so trusting that he didn’t see the goblins as the new threat? Had the false letter been received and was the answer even now being sent back?
It wasn’t too late for her to take her leave. The thought of making her way alone back to Athra frightened her, but not as much as making a mistake and causing deaths. But so many had fallen already. The lives of her parents, her neighbors, and every warrior who had fought to vindicate their right as a people to live would be squandered if it only postponed a war they
couldn’t hope to win.
She imagined what Spicy would say.
You always think you’re right just because you use bigger words than everyone else.
She couldn’t ever refuse the bait. They’d get into a stupid fight that their mother would have to break up.
She put the notebook away.
The words she had used this evening weren’t big, but just the perfect size. Now if only she could get them to the right set of eyes so they would be read.
Two of the goblins by the bunker had vanished from sight, presumably to take shelter from the cold. The lone goblin remaining appeared to be alert, but his attention was on the road and the fort.
Thistle managed to slip past him. The spot at the rear of the fort where Kel had let her out the first time she had visited was out of sight of any of the bunkers. Now the wall lay in shadow as she approached it.
“Hello? Hey, anyone up there?”
She didn’t dare cry out or whistle. The goblins within had sharp ears and the other bunkers might also have sentries. There was no way she could climb the wall. She feared the tower closest to her might be empty.
“Men of Pinnacle!” she hissed.
Finally, a shadow moved, but no one replied. She waited. Shivered. They couldn’t hear her, she concluded. Her final contribution to their raid would be to freeze to death. She kicked together some snow and dirt and made a rough wad. She threw it at the tower.
Thump.
She made a second and a third.
Thump. Thump.
The shadow reappeared.
“Down here!”
The human above muttered something. Then a head appeared over the parapet.
“Hoist me up! I have to talk to the sergeant. But you have to keep quiet.”
The guard’s voice was loud. “Go to the gate.”
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