All around them goblins chattered, but he could understand none of their guttural exchanges. For all he knew, they could be nattering on about the baby the little yellow-skinned goblin had stolen, arguing over the spoils, or simply discussing the weather.
Grallik couldn’t see Kenosh or Horace, but he suspected they were nearby, watching him warily. Kenosh was loyal and never strayed too far. Grallik had put all three of their lives in such disarray that there might never be a future for them beyond slaving to that tribe of little monsters. The wizard silently raged against the world and himself for his stupidity.
What have I done? he mouthed.
He raised a hand and pressed it against his forehead, let his fingers trail down over his face. He didn’t need a mirror to register his appearance. His cheeks were sunken and his chin pronounced, the scraggly beard not enough to cover it. He’d practically been starving himself since leaving Steel Town. Grallik had always been thin, in part due to his half-elf heritage. But he’d never been gaunt before. The goblins had not been giving him more than meager handfuls of nourishment, and he hadn’t been able to eat some of it-raw meat, insects and grubs. The one tomato Horace gave him from the dwarves’ garden had exploded inside his stomach and made him feel sick, he was so unused to food.
He was weak from hunger, and he blamed his weakness, his hunger, for his fumbling mistakes, asking Mudwort so bluntly about her magic. He should have scavenged in the village, as everyone else had.
“I’m sorry. I …” He shook his head in resignation. “So hungry. So hungry, I’m not thinking right.”
“Then eat, wizard,” Mudwort said brusquely. “Ask Direfang for food to fill that ugly little belly. Beg. Beg to be given something.”
“Beg?”
“Like the slaves in Steel Town begged,” she answered. “Like the skull man begs.”
Grallik looked around, finding Horace easily then, standing amid a group of goblins, staring at him and Mudwort as though he were listening to every pathetic word. Had the priest begged for food?
“Go beg,” she said. “Like a slave. Then come back and talk about magic.”
Thoroughly broken, Grallik begged and Direfang took pity on him.
The goblins chittered happily as the wizard groveled before Direfang. The begging, though embarrassing, netted the wizard a basket heavy with tomatoes and potatoes, a handful of berries that set his mouth to watering, and a jug of what might have been dwarven ale.
Grallik took his prizes to a side of the trail where there were only a few goblins, who watched, pointed, and whispered about him. He was careful not to eat too much too quickly. He intended to ration the contents of the basket; it could last several days. There were many white crackers dotted with fennel seeds that were stuffed in the side of the basket and felt as firm as bricks-dwarven hardtack, he suspected. It was fundamentally tasteless but useful and nourishing. He bit into one and chewed it gratefully.
When he returned to Mudwort, carrying the basket protectively close, he saw that the other earth-skinned goblin was sitting across from her, their fingers sunk into the dirt and their eyes closed. They were casting magic together, he was excited to see.
Direfang loomed over Mudwort, however, and several other goblins hovered nearby, all of them clearly curious. With a scowl, Direfang waved the wizard away.
Grallik sighed with disappointment, knowing he’d missed an opportunity to talk to Mudwort and an even greater opportunity to observe her working her strange magic. He turned to seek Horace’s and Kenosh’s company.
“Sit,” Mudwort said, surprising him and the others.
Grallik wasn’t aware she’d seen him and wasn’t sure she was even talking to him. But then she repeated her command, her head turned ever-so-slightly toward him. Perhaps her eyes were not completely closed after all. Or perhaps she had heard him return. He drew his eyebrows together thoughtfully.
Or perhaps she’d sensed him walking on the path as her fingers were buried in it.
His hesitation was brief. He sat cross-legged next to her and the brown-skinned goblin. He sat closer to her than before; he could reach over and touch her if he tried. Direfang and the others stepped back, giving them space.
“Boliver,” Mudwort said, introducing her companion goblin to Grallik. “A clan shaman in the Before Time. Boliver is a stoneteller.”
Grallik didn’t know what the Before Time was, nor a stoneteller, and neither goblin explained further.
Boliver nodded without opening his eyes. His lips were working, like a babe suckling, and the muscles in his arms jumping.
“Boliver, this is the hated Dark Knight that watches,” Mudwort continued. “The one who wielded the hated fire magic in Steel Town. The one that burns the bodies. The one that wants to mingle magic.” She spat at the ground near Grallik’s knee. “The dirty, smelly Dark Knight with all the fire-scars.”
Grallik felt unnerved by Mudwort’s description of him.
She cocked her head toward the wizard, as if she were waiting for something. Grallik didn’t know what to do or what she expected.
Was he allowed to speak?
He set his basket in his lap and put his hands on his knees, finding a hole in his clothing and once more worrying at the threads. He coughed once and a deeper, brief hacking followed. He’d not been able to entirely shake the cough he’d developed in Steel Town, but he noticed it had been getting better the farther away from the mine they traveled.
“The hated Dark Knight hesitates. Frightened maybe?” That was Boliver’s statement. The goblin chuckled mirthlessly.
“I … I don’t understand,” Grallik said. “What should I do?”
Neither goblin responded, their fingers sinking deeper into the hard-packed ground. A moment more, and their hands disappeared below the surface. Mudwort leaned forward until her head touched Boliver’s.
Gravel crunched and Grallik looked up to see Direfang edging closer again. The hobgoblin’s gaze was fixed on Mudwort.
“Mudwort,” Direfang began. “As I said, the maps the dwarf drew are not enough to go on, and the mountains stretch too far. This army stops in the Plains of Dust-”
“Unless there is a shorter way,” she finished. “Yes, I know. You seek a better way to the forest.”
“Mudwort’s forest,” Boliver said.
Grallik glanced at Direfang, then returned his attention to the two goblins. He stretched a hand forward, tentatively, and touched the ground in front of him. It felt as hard as stone.
“What magic do you possess?” he whispered, half to himself, half to Mudwort. “How can you possibly-” He gasped as his fingers suddenly slipped down into the earth, the ground becoming soft and malleable as wet clay. It was nothing he did himself, he knew, as he’d cast no spell, nor even searched his memory for one.
It was all her doing, he decided, gasping again when her fingers grabbed his beneath the surface and tugged his arms deeper still. Grallik set his other hand upon the ground, feeling it solid at first, then yielding. More fingers grabbed that hand, and he couldn’t tell if those belonged to Mudwort or Boliver.
Grallik struggled for air, feeling a painful tightness in his chest, as if the goblins meant to suffocate him in the dirt. He felt dizzy as his mind spiraled down into the ground. A heartbeat later, and he felt as if he were rising. Though his eyes were wide open and staring at Mudwort, an image superimposed itself on his vision; he realized he was staring down at the two goblins and himself from a point high above them on the trail.
He opened his mouth to ask “How?” but he couldn’t speak. It was their spell, he realized, Mudwort and Boliver’s; and they’d pulled him into it somehow, maybe using his arcane energies to help power it. That would explain the dizziness, the feeling of being siphoned. He closed his eyes as the view became clearer. As if he were a bird soaring on some thermal updraft, looking down on the world. He rose, and the image of himself and the two goblins, of Direfang hovering and goblins upon goblins stretched out along the trail, became smaller and smaller until all were specks.