Had it been a mistake to bring the Ergothian priest with him? Grallik wondered. And for that matter, should he have invited the only remaining member of his talon?
Should he have headed north or east and found a Dark Knight outpost, accepted another posting?
No, he told himself not for the first or last time, eyes focused on the regular rising and falling of Horace’s ample stomach. “None of it was a mistake.”
Grallik had followed the once-slaves for purely selfish reasons. It wasn’t to save himself when the world shook and the volcanoes erupted, but to better himself. And he hadn’t so much as followed the slaves as he’d followed one slave-her.
He could see her when he leaned forward and looked around-a gaunt goblin wearing a Dark Knight tabard.
She was a diminutive, red-skinned thing with a flat face and wide eyes threaded with tiny veins. Her small mouth was drawn forward in a pensive expression. She commanded a discipline of magic that Grallik didn’t understand but desperately wanted to learn and control. When he’d watched her in the slave pens back in Steel Town, he’d seen her combine her magic with that of another goblin. She was doing that at that moment, kneeling across from a mud-brown creature a head taller than she was, a goblin with a mottled, bumpy hide that looked like a piece of the trail come to life. Together they rocked back and forth, slowly, fingertips brushing the ground.
Back in the mining camp, their magic had created a hole beneath the slave pen that their fellows could escape through. He wondered what magic she and her mud-brown companion were casting.
More, he wondered when he would get an opportunity to speak with her. The thought of a lowly goblin teaching him anything was at the same time appealing and demeaning. The wizards he’d studied under in his youth would consider his notion blasphemous.
Goblins were so far beneath men!
But that one goblin … she was special. She was why he had risked everything. No human or elf wizard Grallik had studied under had been able to join magic with another, with the earth, in the same way.
Grallik needed to get her alone-or as alone as possible amid that malodorous mass. She knew a smattering of the human tongue, so he felt certain he could make her understand what he wanted.
Would she consent to teach him?
By the dark gods, she had to; otherwise all of his humiliation and agony would be for nothing.
But it might be days before he could find the right opportunity. The crowded mountain trail certainly wasn’t the place. So meanwhile, he would continue to watch her and wait until they left the trail and returned to flat ground, where the goblins and hobgoblins would spread out and he might find her alone.
“Patience,” he whispered to himself. “It will happen.” He stifled a yawn and glanced back at Horace, the priest’s stomach still rising and falling in sound sleep.
Grallik envied the Ergothian, who seemed to have no trouble dropping off peacefully any time the goblin horde stopped their march. The priest had told Grallik it was Zeboim’s will that he slept deeply, so that he could better face the rigors of each day.
But no god seemed to will that Grallik should sleep-at least, not long enough to do him any good.
Despite his exhaustion, Grallik couldn’t bring himself to close his eyes; he didn’t trust the goblins not to slit his throat as he dozed. His wounds ached. His feet hadn’t stopped throbbing since he joined with the goblins. His head constantly pounded as loudly and rhythmically as a blacksmith’s hammer. His legs were beyond sore; sometimes he couldn’t feel them.
Grallik’s magic was powerful, but he didn’t know a single spell that could ease his wracked condition. In Steel Town Grallik’s spells enabled the work of the great smelters, and he fashioned glyphs and wards that shot columns of flame into the sky and kept the slaves in check. Fire spells came almost effortlessly.
Horace slept effortlessly.
Grallik tapped the fingers of his left hand against his temple and studied the priest’s face. Horace’s expression was serene. But in the passing of a few heartbeats, beads of sweat dotted his smooth forehead, and his eyelids twitched as if he were lost in a troubling dream. Moments more passed, and the sweat became a fine sheen that covered all of his face and traveled down his neck to settle on his bare stomach. The priest’s breathing became ragged. The goblin wearing the Dark Knight tabard turned to stare. She grunted something Grallik couldn’t understand, wiped her nose on her arm, and closed her eyes.
A smile tugged at the corner of Grallik’s lips as Horace’s discomfort increased. His sleep was no longer so peaceful. The wizard had no intention of harming the priest, just making him a little uneasy. It wasn’t fair that Grallik should suffer without company.
Grallik stopped worrying at the thread on his under-tunic just as Horace bolted upright, gasping. The priest placed the back of his hand against his cheek, as if to check for a fever, then slowly turned and glared at Grallik.
But the wizard did not meet the priest’s gaze. He had returned his attention to the red-skinned goblin. Her arms were thrust into the hard-packed earth nearly up to her elbows. It was as if the ground had turned to liquid around her.
“No, this was not a mistake,” Grallik said to himself.
MUDWORT’S REACH
Mudwort let out a ragged sigh, wrinkling her nose at the pungent scent of her own breath. She watched Boliver leave, wending his way past a lean hobgoblin and disappearing in the mass of bodies milling on the mountain trail. Mingling their magic had not yielded what Direfang wanted. In fact, it had not worked at all.
Her fault, she knew. She was too unfocused and listless, her mind wandering freely into the earth and thinking only about the earth itself. Boliver had been right to give up on her.
The earth had shaken so fiercely in days past that it had caused the mine to collapse and the volcanoes to erupt. She had predicted the disasters, sensing the nervousness in the rocks. She had marveled at the earth’s power, pleased that its violence had led to their freedom, worried that it had forevermore become a wobbly, uncertain, distrustful thing. Above all, she remained curious.
How soon would the earth tremble again? Would great rents appear soon and suck down more goblins and hobgoblins and the three Dark Knights who were their prisoners? Would bulges in the land arise without warning to block their path or push them off the mountain? Would the volcanoes breathe their hellish fire once more?
Her fingers teased the rocks that did not feel nervous. They were smooth and sleeping, and the longer she touched them, the more relaxed she became.
“Perhaps the ground is tired and done,” Mudwort said to herself. “Perhaps it will not bounce again.” She, too, was tired, and the soothing pebbles lulled her toward sleep.
A muffled wail startled her. Glancing up the trail, she spotted Direfang cradling Graytoes. The once-delicate features of the young goblin with skin the color of sunflower petals were twisted in pain as Direfang held her, and she sobbed over the loss of her mate, Moon-eye. She had been sobbing practically every minute she was awake. Moon-eye had tarried behind the column, and a scout searching for him the previous day reported seeing a big cat feasting on his corpse.
Graytoes was as worthless as her dead mate, Mudwort decided-worse than worthless, as she was commanding Direfang’s attention and pointlessly caterwauling all the time. It might not be such a bad thing if the earth opened up and swallowed Graytoes.
Mudwort missed Moon-eye too, or rather, she missed his abilities. His senses had been keen, and he had tracked better than anyone she knew. If he were alive, Moon-eye would have been tasked with her present assignment.