Direfang’s face turned dark and hard. He needed to feed his army, and to clothe them-as goblins coveted garments of any kind, which accorded them marks of respect. And so it was good they’d come upon that village, which had been unable to defend itself. At the same time, the hobgoblin leader felt sad for the few surviving dwarves. Their homes would soon be empty.
“Priest, yes, find this parchment,” he answered Horace finally, “and find something to write with. A map is important.” He paused. “And make sure the map drawn is true. No deception from Reorx’s children.” Direfang saw the old female dwarf had heard his words and bristled at his mention of their god.
Horace lumbered to his feet and looked at the houses, unsure of where to start. Goblins streamed in and out of them, the latter with canvas sacks over their shoulders or baskets in their arms. Some dragged blankets bundled up and stuffed with junk.
“Mudwort, go with the skull man.” Direfang wanted to make sure none of the looting goblins hurt the priest-and also, the hobgoblin leader wanted the priest watched. “Mudwort! Be fast!”
The red-skinned goblin had plopped herself down in front of the crowd, watching the priest talk to the ancient dwarf woman and observing Direfang as he dealt with all of the preparations.
She jumped up, her face an unreadable mask. Mudwort made her way up one of the paths that cut through the garden, plucking a tomato as she went. She studied it for a moment, then tossed it to the priest, following her, who did not hesitate to eat it.
Direfang watched the pair walk off. He wanted to search the homes too, thinking there might be something tasty or useful inside them, some little treasure he could claim … perhaps some leather he could fashion into shoes. He’d been curious about what the Dark Knights had kept in their homes, and he wondered the same about the dwarves.
But he couldn’t leave the dwarves unguarded at the anvil; the goblins surely would descend on them. Only his presence would keep the mob in check. So later he would ask Mudwort and Spikehollow to describe what they saw and smelled, and later he would look through the spoils and perhaps find something left over.
The dwarves around him were praying again, whispering in their gravelly voices, a few rocking back and forth and closing their eyes so tightly they looked as if they were in pain.
The goblins were chattering, their prattle mingling with the dwarves’ praying and making Direfang’s head hurt. The bleats of terrified goats and sheep and the squeals of pigs cut through all the noise. The goblin voices rose in excitement.
“Food soon,” he said, too softly for anyone to hear.
Direfang did not see Saro-Saro slip deep into the goblin crowd and gather his most trusted clansmen close.
TREASURE
Mudwort brushed by Spikehollow and Leftear and selected one of the more promising homes that didn’t appear to have been ransacked yet. The priest followed her without a word.
The home was tilted to one side, as if the dirt on one end had gotten tired of holding the stones up. It was a ponderous and ugly building, she thought, carved bricks as dark as an overcast sky, all squat-looking like the people who lived there. The only spot of color was a painted symbol on the hide door, and that was cracked and weathered. She stopped in front of the hide door and smoothed out the folds. The painting was an outline of a stern man’s face. Like the dwarf men who’d been killed outside the village, he had a long beard. She put her nose against it and made out tiny drawings of hammers and anvils entwined in the beard.
“Silly,” she pronounced it as she moved the hide aside and went inside. After a moment, Horace followed her. The home consisted of one room, a low table in the center separating the kitchen from the sleeping area.
“Reorx,” the priest explained. “On the hide, that is a drawing of their supreme god. It is said he dared to refer to Chaos as the Father of All and of Nothing.” After a heartbeat, he added, “But I understand that the gods mean nothing to you.”
She gave no indication that she’d heard or understood him and moved past the table and straight to a chest at the end of a short four-poster bed. If the priest had not come inside, Mudwort would have tested the bed, having had nothing comfortable to sleep upon for years and years; she wondered how soft it and the pillow were. She ran her fingers over the edge of the chest, eyes on the quilted coverlet that draped over the bed and fell to the floor.
She sniffed the air. It was musty and dead-smelling in that place, and Mudwort instinctively knew it hadn’t been lived in for a while. Yet there were possessions everywhere-ceramic dishes on a counter, a tall mug banded with copper, a small cask that might have held ale. The table had what she guessed was a shrine in its center: a totem of the same dwarf depicted on the hide, Reorx, circled by smooth stones she guessed came from the stream.
Whoever had moved on had left more than a few possessions behind. Maybe there was something interesting in the chest. She opened it, and out of the corner of her eye watched Horace step to the kitchen counter. The priest walked stooped over as the ceiling was low. He reached for a towel and wiped the juice from the tomato he had just eaten off his hands and face.
Just then two goblins rushed in, chattering and looking around for things to take.
“Out!” Mudwort spat.
They swung about and went elsewhere.
“The foreman is in a hurry for some parchment,” Horace said. He opened a cabinet door, bent over, and peered inside. His voice came muffled. “One of those women is going to draw him a map. He wants us to be quick.”
Still, Mudwort did not let on if she understood him.
Horace repeated the gist in her tongue, and she nearly dropped the lid on her fingers in surprise. So that much was clear; she had not known that he understood goblinspeak.
Quickly she turned away, sorry she had let him know that she understood him at all, in any tongue.
He shrugged, continuing to search. She heard him moving things around in the cabinet. Over her shoulder she stole glances at him, finding him more interesting-at the moment-than what might be in the chest.
“Why come here?” she asked finally in goblinspeak.
“In here? With you?” he replied, not understanding.
“No.”
“With you and the rest of the goblins? When Steel Town was destroyed?” He stopped poking around for a moment. “I’m not sure … Mudwort. Perhaps because the Gray Robe asked me to. Perhaps because Zeboim gave me the nudge. Or perhaps because following all of you goblins seemed like the most attractive option at the time.” He returned to searching through the cabinet. “Ah, books!”
He retrieved three small volumes, bound in the dyed hide of some animal. Two were red, like Mudwort’s skin, the other was faded blue. Horace set them on the counter and leafed through the first.
“I don’t read Dwarvish,” he said, half to himself. The next seemed equally perplexing to him, and so he set it aside. But the faded blue one was blank. “This will work.” He squatted and searched through the cabinet, a moment later finding sticks of charcoal tied together with a strip of cloth. “The foreman is in a hurry,” he repeated. “I should take these to him now.”
“Yes, go. Take those things to Direfang. Be fast.” She peered inside the chest. “Leave me alone.”
Horace left the home without another word, and Mudwort breathed a sigh of relief to be rid of the foul human. She could give her full attention to the chest’s contents. A thin summer blanket was folded on top, and that she took out carefully, thinking it a prize. Underneath the blanket rested a jumble of things that brought a pleased gasp. She reached for the things, eager like a child receiving birthday gifts. Her fingers danced over carved wooden dwarves, depicted standing straight like soldiers-one with a crown, another in robes, one a woman. She thought they might be toys or playing pieces for some game. She scooped them out but wrapped her fingers around the woman-piece.