The Goblin Wood (15 page)

She scrambled down the long, steep slope and made it to the riverbed by the time they reached the cliff top.

A few more arrows hissed past as she splashed upstream among the boulders, but the archers had to aim quickly and they weren’t too close. Still, she breathed easier as she hurried around the river bend that took her out of sight.

The roar of the waterfall greeted her like a benediction. She’d chosen this place carefully. There was another patch of dense woods to keep them from following her up above, and climbing down the rope and the scramble (or better yet, the fall) down the long, rocky slope to the river would take a man in armor quite awhile.

Nonetheless, she hurried as much as she could. Ordinarily this part of the riverbed was dry, but now the river was swollen with spring rain, and she splashed over rocks and around the boulders. She tripped once in her haste and almost got a soaking—not that it mattered. Getting into the hidden cave behind the waterfall always drenched her.

She spotted the second rope she’d hung in the shadow of the cliff. It didn’t matter whether they tried to climb after her, or gave up and went back, for she’d no intention of continuing the chase. The cave behind the falls was completely invisible when the river was full, and only a goblin could have found the hand-and footholds needed to climb to it.

She reached the cliff, wet with the mist from the waterfall, and stopped by the rope, gazing up. If she were them, she wouldn’t even try—A face peered over the cliff top, saw her, and vanished. A human face. They were waiting for her!

How could they have gotten there so fast? No, no time for questions. Makenna took a deep breath and tried to calm her pounding heart.

They were waiting at the top of the rope. They’d know she hadn’t escaped that way and would tell her pursuers when they came around the bend—probably quite soon now. If they knew she was there, they’d find the cave eventually. Perhaps they knew about it already. How? No time.

She had to get out of the ravine, fast, unseen. The river? It would be risky, but all her options were dangerous now, and she’d grown up by the wetland lakes and was a strong swimmer.

She scuttled under the shelter of the cliffs, where she couldn’t be seen from above. It took only seconds to strip off her boots and fill them with rocks, keeping a careful eye on the river bend. If her pursuers appeared, she’d have to swim.

Clinging to the shadow of the cliff, she worked her way to the deep pool at the bottom of the fall and pitched her boots in. Like St. Agna escaping to the Otherworld, the mighty sorceress would vanish from their trap without leaving a trace.

The water was up to midthigh. Makenna took a moment to study the current, planning a course that would keep her well away from the pounding falls. She took several deep breaths, forcing all the air she could in and out of her lungs, and then dove.

Cold water searched through her clothes, dispelling the warmth of her body. At least it wasn’t the numbing cold of the high rivers that could kill a swimmer before she realized she was in danger.

She swam for the bottom and stroked along, having learned as a child that if you didn’t stay close to the bottom, the buoyancy of your lungs would drag you up. Her hands deflected several rocks, but she missed one that scraped her cheek. Then the current took her.

It was far more powerful than she’d thought it would be, dragging her over the rough riverbed like a runaway horse, rolling and twisting her. She slammed sideways into a rock, bruising her ribs, forcing the air from her straining lungs. Was she out of their sight? She tried to orient herself, but she couldn’t be sure, and she had to breathe now!

Bracing her feet against a stone, she poked her head into the air, gasping as quietly as she could, clinging to the rock. She dashed the water from her eyes and looked around. She’d come farther than she thought. The rock was between her and the cliff top, but there was the bend—and the soldiers were coming around it!

Ducking under the surface, Makenna felt her way carefully around the rock, surfacing cautiously this time, just her eyes above the river until she was sure neither the soldiers on the cliff top nor the ones on the riverbed could see her. She risked a glimpse upriver. They’d almost reached the rope, and the men at the top were standing, calling down to them. She couldn’t make out the words over the roar of the falls, but they weren’t pointing down the stream to where she was.

The wet, moss-slick rocks and the hidden cave would keep them busy for a time. Makenna silently wished them a merry hunt and dove again, not surfacing until the current had carried her around the curve and out of sight.

In the end, she let the current take her all the way to the place where the river broadened and the ravine walls fell away. Swimming on the surface, she could avoid the rocks. Once she was accustomed to the chill, it was comfortable to let the water carry her, though she took care to stay out of the deep, fast current.

She staggered, dripping, out of the shallows and found the small glade where she’d told the Flichters to meet her. A warming spell took care of the worst of the cold, but her wet clothes promptly chilled her again. She took the risk of sitting in the afternoon sunlight to dry off while she waited. And thought.

There was no way the men on top of that cliff could have been part of the group that originally pursued her. They’d been waiting for her, perhaps even before the chase began.

A chill that had nothing to do with wet clothes made her shiver, and she wrapped her arms around her knees.

They had known, in advance, that she would be there and had planned to pin her in the ravine. A good plan, too—now that she had time to be frightened, she was terrified at how nearly it had worked. If the men on the cliff top had been a little more cautious, she’d have been trapped in the cave. If the men who were chasing her had been just a little faster they’d have seen her dive in, and they could have caught her easily in the river. But they’d probably seen no reason to hurry, since she was running right into their trap. No wonder it had been so easy to outrun them—they were driving her, not chasing her. She shivered again.

Had someone from the settlement found the ropes and guessed about that part of her plan? It seemed the only possible answer, though she’d concealed the ropes as well as she could. And there was no reason for the settlers to go near the ravine. They got water from the stream, and their stock was pastured on the other side of the camp. Perhaps some children out exploring? Once the ropes had been reported, she thought Master Lazur was capable of figuring out how they might be used. But still…

The chill of dread was growing. Even before the time the Flichters were to have met her came and passed, before she saw the bruises on Cogswhallop’s face when he finally emerged from the bushes, Makenna knew in her bones that something had gone wrong.

T
obin developed a nagging cough, and his fever came and went.

“Aye, they’ll do that,” Natter informed him.

“But when will it go away completely?”

“When it does. You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t get worse before it gets better.”

Tobin sighed. At least she was speaking to him.

“Don’t pull that long face on me, human. You’re lucky to be alive. I’m nursing you only because the mistress wants it.”

He started to laugh, which made him cough, and she slammed the door behind her.

His ankle was all right as long as he kept it propped up on pillows with a cold compress, but if he lowered it, it started to throb. Putting any weight on it was excruciating.

“I’d rather have the chain back,” he grumbled to Erebus when the goblin came to visit him.

“Well, likely the mistress will heal it for you when…ah…”

“When she gets back? When will that be?” Erebus was shaking his head. “She already told me she planned to attack the settlement. She even told me how—that she’s going to draw off the soldiers and let the goblins in to wreak havoc.”

“We all fight with the weapons at hand, Sir Tobin. Even you.”

“I know, but that lunatic girl is going to get all kinds of people killed if she’s not stopped. Goblins, too!”

“Ah, but the goblins being killed was the reason she started—or, at least, one of them.”

“So when will she be back?”

“Since you know so much already…I’m guessing two days there, a day to finalize plans, the day of the attack, a day after to heal up and rest, and two days back. Throw in a day for things to go wrong, and you’ve got just over a week. Mind, I’m just guessing.”

“A week? I’m going to be stuck in bed for a week? Couldn’t someone else heal me?”

Erebus snorted. “You were a much better prisoner than a patient!”

Now he was both. Tobin fought down the irritation that seemed to come over him so easily these days. “I’m sorry.”

Erebus reached out and pressed a small palm against his face. “Aye, that’s all right. Being sick makes us all cross. But you’ll have to wait for the mistress to get healed, for no one else can do it.”

“If I promised not to escape—”

“I didn’t say won’t, lad. I said can’t. The mistress is the only human here. Therefore she’s the only one who can heal.”

“But I thought healing was one of the simplest spells. Can’t all goblins work magic?”

“Ah, you don’t understand. And no reason why you should, since it hasn’t been explained. But as I understand it, human magic is an unformed talent to manipulate almost any aspect of nature. Some have none of this talent, some have much, and some in between. And it must be trained in order to be useful. Have I got that right?”

Tobin thought of Jeriah’s theory that the choosers selected children to be trained as priests for the degree of their magical talent instead of their holiness. “Possibly. Yes.”

“I’m going to want some information in trade for this, mind, but goblin magic is different. We’re all born with a gift, but it’s to manipulate only one aspect of nature, and it’s as much instinctive as trained.”

“You work magic by instinct?” asked Tobin skeptically, remembering Master Lazur’s rows of spell books.

“Aye, exactly. Why not? Though it’s not entirely clear whether all gifts are magical. Take the Stoners. They can work stone in any way stone can be worked and they always hit their target with a thrown rock, unless it’s far out of range. But is that magic, or just the result of generations of practice? Or even faith? For they believe stone is a god.

“Then there are folk like the Charmers, whose gift is to confuse their prey and even make them see or feel things that aren’t there. Their gift is clearly magical.”

“Prey?” asked Tobin nervously.

“Then there are those like the Trackers. You see them following a set of tracks and you think, why, anyone with eyes could do that—but then the trail crosses a stretch of solid rock, leaving no trace at all, and the tracker keeps right on as if the tracks were plain as print! No way to know where the skill leaves off and the magic begins.” He shrugged.

“Prey?”

“Aye, all the goblin gifts, at least the older ones from before we became civilized, were used in the wild to hunt animals, or find or grow plants. That’s why the Finders’ ability works best on green things—finding edible plants was its original purpose. Some of our abilities are still very close to the need that created them, like the Spoilers, whose gift is to rot anything organic and who can only digest rotten food.”

“I think I see,” said Tobin slowly. “But none of you has a gift for healing?”

“Useful, I grant, but not useful for hunting or harvesting. Odd gifts do appear, like Cogswhallop’s gift to work with iron or steel as the Stoners do with stone. He’s the son of a Flamer and a Maker, but whether that has anything to do with it, we don’t know. Often the new gifts aren’t passed on, but Daroo has his father’s gift, so perhaps this ability will stay with us.”

“Is that how new gifts develop?”

“Aye, though it’s rare. Why, my own gift, that of long memory and the ability to learn reading, writing, and languages easily, must have developed long after the others, for it’s only useful for trade with civilized people.”

“Doesn’t your history record when different gifts came into being?”

“Well, it does now, but before Bookeries there was no history! At least none remembered or recorded. And speaking of history”—the paper and pen appeared—“do you know…”

Erebus’ visits were cheering, but Tobin spent his empty hours worrying about what that crazy girl was doing at the settlement. It would be just like Jeriah to decide to do something heroic and get himself killed while his brother was laid up by his own clumsiness.

That night Natter pronounced his fever worse and gave him an herbal brew to drink. He recognized the bitterness of willow bark, but there was something else in it that made it taste even more awful.

“If you don’t like the dose, then don’t fret,” she told him sharply. “It’s all this fussing that’s wearing you down.”

“If you want me to stop fussing, then let me out!” he snapped back. “Being stuck in this hovel is like being buried alive!”

“Humph!” She flounced off, and Tobin cursed her before rolling over to try to lose his worries in sleep.

The bitter medicine did some good, for he slept well and felt more cheerful the next day. He was delighted when the door opened and Onny’s bright face peeked around it.

“Come in! I was afraid you’d gotten into trouble.”

They all pushed in, grinning. Nuffet came to sit in his lap. Only Regg stopped in the doorway, smiling shyly.

“Well, we did,” Onny confided. “A little bit. But Fa said it mostly worked out in the end. And just last night Natter said we could take you out and show you the village, if we could think of a way you could move, and Regg did.” She gestured at the door like a showman, and Regg blushed and dragged a pair of crude crutches into the room. Tobin almost wept with joy.

“You’re not supposed to get tired,” Onny told him firmly. “Or we
will
be in trouble.”

“I won’t,” he promised, standing in the doorway and gazing happily out at the sunlit clearing. “How far is this village you’re going to show me?”

They looked at one another and burst into giggles. Even Regg.

“What?”

“It’s here.” Onny laughed. “All around you.”

Tobin frowned, suspecting a joke, and Daroo took pity on him. “Come out, and look back at where you were.”

Tobin hobbled forward on the crutches and turned. The night he’d escaped during the storm he hadn’t looked back at his prison, but now he saw that the hut’s exterior was covered with grass and brush. It looked like a small hill with a door in it.

“The mistress lived here the first year,” Daroo told him. “Until we built her a proper house. That’s why it’s so big. Now we use it mostly for storage.”

“I see.” He turned and examined the meadow. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw dozens of small hills, some taller, some long and flat. They’d deliberately shaped them to match the contours of the land. Sometimes only a shadowed doorway or the glint of light on a windowpane showed the presence of a dwelling.

“Come on,” said Daroo. “I’ll show you my house.”

“Then mine!” said Onny.

“Me, too,” Nuffet piped.

Tobin saw few goblins as he hobbled through the village. Some were walking along the paths, some working in the cleared patches by their homes. Most of those he saw simply nodded a greeting, but some smiled, and a few wished him good morning.

“It’s kind of empty right now,” Onny told him, a shadow crossing her face. “When everyone’s here there’s more than a thousand of us. But almost half went with the mistress.” Then she brightened. “Here’s Bocami’s house.”

Tobin wondered which of their parents were among those who’d gone, but they offered no information, and he decided not to ask.

They introduced him to Bocami, the metal-smith who’d made his shackle—he held no grudges against Tobin over his escape. Then he met Varbo, the weaver, and Regg’s mother, who was a leather worker, and Wintle, the herber.

“It’s mostly Makers and Bookeries who live in the open meadow,” Daroo explained. “The Trackers and others who hunt live more in the woods, and the Greeners are on the edge of the meadow, by their fields. And outside this village there are others, but they don’t help the mistress like we do.”

“Other villages?” asked Tobin. “As big as this one?”

“Oh, no,” Onny bragged. “We’re the biggest.”

“How many goblins are there, living in the wood?”

“Not very many,” said Daroo. “Fa says only about five thousand or so. But more come all the time. Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, just curiosity.” Tobin hoped he didn’t look as guilty as he felt. It wasn’t a long walk, but he was sweating when he reached Daroo’s house.

“There it is,” the boy told him proudly. “It’s the only one like it. Fa likes to live on the ground and Mam likes the trees, so they compromised.”

Starting on the earth, the low grassy mound grew into the lower branches of the tree like a live thing. Tobin could barely make out the woven walls behind the screen of leaves.

“It’s beautiful,” he said sincerely.

“I’d ask you in,” said Natter’s voice unexpectedly from behind him, “but…” She gestured at the roof, which was no higher than his waist. Tobin laughed and started coughing, doubled over on his crutches.

“He’s tired! I told you not to wear him out!”

Tobin joined in the children’s chorus of protest, but he was secretly relieved to end up sitting in the shade. Natter went in through a side door and brought him a cup of something cool with herbs in it. She watched him drink, wearing her familiar scowl. “As soon as you’ve rested, you’re going right back.”

Tobin bowed to her judgment and let her cope with the children’s arguments, which she settled by sending them off.

“It’s a beautiful place,” Tobin told her, after Onny tossed her head and stalked away. “I think there are more flowers here than anywhere else in the meadow.”

“Aye.” Natter spread her hands, displaying her green-tipped fingers. “This is my garden, at least a part of it. And my home.”

Master Lazur had said goblins were incapable of love or loyalty, but it was love that showed in her small, sharp face as she looked over the green meadow. And they seemed to be as loyal to their peasant mistress as any human could have been—maybe more.

“You know,” said Tobin, “in spite of the grass and the size, it’s very like a human village. I mean, it’s just…I guess we’re not as different as I thought.”

“Insults will get you nowhere, boy. But I know what you mean. When you think about it, my kind and yours have dwelled together since the beginning of the world. I guess we’ve both shaped each other.”

She sat in silence after that, gazing at the peaceful meadow, and Tobin found no answer to her words.

He dreamed that night.

The moon was shining through his windows, shining down on the goblin village, but it was brighter than any moonlight he’d ever seen. Still, he knew it was the moon, for it was silver, and it illuminated the village in shades of black, silver, and gray.

He thought what a lovely night it was and wandered out to find the children—they wouldn’t want to waste a night like this in sleeping.

He was wandering among the grassy mounds of the houses, trying to figure out a way to reach the children without waking their parents, when horses appeared on the edges of the grove—horses with saddles and battle harness on their bodies, but no riders. One of the horses stamped, nervously, and flames the color of moonlight flared around its hoof.

Tobin looked up at the moon. It was a strange orangish brown, but it gave off silver light. He didn’t understand it, but he guessed what was about to happen, and horror twisted through him.

He tried to cry warning to the sleeping village, but no sound came from his throat. He began to run, to try to find the children and warn them, but the horses charged.

They rode down on the goblin homes. Their moon-flaming hooves broke through the roofs, and goblins ran from the doors like rabbits from a flooding burrow. When the horses trampled them, the silver flames licked up around their hooves and the goblins screamed.

He tried to find Onny’s house, but he didn’t know where it was. When he found Regg’s house, the roof was broken in like a smashed shell, and he decided, shuddering, not to examine the nearby bodies.

He wanted to find Natter’s house, but realized by the time he did, it would be too late. He had to stop the horses!

He ran among them, trying to find a rider, someone in charge, someone he could order to put a stop to this, but he found no riders. He grabbed one horse’s bridle and tried to talk to it, but it tossed its head, throwing him aside. He sat, listening to the pounding hooves and the screaming, staring at the orange-brown moon…and suddenly he recognized it.

Tobin woke, gasping, his throat tight with the effort to scream. He stared frantically at the windows, but there was no moonlight, only a lighter patch of darkness and the drip of recent rain.