He felt a drop of rain and looked up. More drops hit his face. He closed his eyes and relished the feel of wetness, until the rain started to come down harder. It rat-a-tat-tatted against his hide and the lean-tos, and it woke up goblins sleeping outside unfinished dwellings. It pattered against the ground that had for long days been hard and dusty. In fact, it hadn’t rained for days, and so many of the ferns and wildflowers were wilted and brittle.
Direfang held his arms out, welcoming the deluge and a chance to wash the stink from his clothes and hide. He had a brief pang of worry over some of their supplies, but most were in chests-all of his books and maps were safe, all of it was tucked beneath the mushroom canopies of the big willows.
Many of the goblins did not share his gladness for the rain. Many howled and cursed as they scattered, looking for shelter. The Fishgatherers found it beneath an overhang of the bluff-Direfang watched them scurry there; then, though, a few of them raised their hands to the dark sky and danced.
The slap of goblin feet competed with the pattering of rain as the goblins scrambled for cover. He slowly turned to survey the bedlam, seeing a bunch of goblin fingers poking out from under the tent in an effort to hold it down. The loose corner flew free, and more of the tent flapped wildly. Nearby, goblins crowded into the home with the tilted, high-pitched roof.
Lightning flashed and in that instant, Direfang saw goblins who had been sleeping in a big oak scramble down the trunk. Another flash of lightning was followed by an unusually loud clap of thunder. He felt the ground tremble beneath his feet. Some of the younglings cried in fear, and their parents told them it was nothing to worry over. It was not like when the earth bucked in Neraka, and the volcanoes erupted. It was merely a storm.
A scream followed another flash, and Direfang watched the home that had been built to resemble the tavernkeeper’s totter. Goblins spilled out from behind the deerskin door just as the walls fell apart and the roof started to slowly cave in.
The rain pelted sideways, and the Flamegrass lean-tos took flight, goblins frantically trying to grab at the hides and sections of thatch that were careening across the open ground. He stood and watched helplessly. The rain was a solid sheet of gray that had turned patches of dirt into wide puddles and bent the smallest trees. He saw shapes in the gray, goblins scrambling from one place to the next, and in between gaps in the thunder, he heard their curses and the whoops of some of the younglings who seemed not to mind all the water.
The rare torrent went on for what seemed like a long, long time. At one point the wind blew so hard, it took Direfang to his knees. Then it suddenly lessened to a gentle patter, the bluster gone out of the storm. The sky was still dark, dawn held at bay by the still-thick clouds. Direfang’s eyes were keen, and he didn’t need the light to see.
Most of his city was in ruins. All it had taken was a great storm.
Walls had collapsed, roofs had blown away, and there were no traces of some of the lean-tos. Direfang padded toward Qel’s and discovered the bloodrager pelts torn loose from the posts. But Orvago had stopped the wind from stealing them; he and Qel held them around Rockhide in an attempt to keep the old goblin dry.
A few of the homes-or rather the frames of homes-had withstood the onslaught, but as Direfang had noted earlier they were better constructed than the majority. They were the property of the Boarhunters, the goblins who had seemed practiced at cutting down trees.
Another home not far from the edge of the bluff appeared to be unharmed. He headed toward that place. It was small and squat, the logs that made up its sides were short and rose little more than two feet off the ground. The roof was a tightly woven mass of grasses and thin branches.
“Mudwort?”
Direfang knelt at the entrance. He’d seen her building it, with the help of Sully, who she’d somehow coerced and directed into doing her bidding. The building was unlike any of the others, and he peered inside what passed for the door.
“Mudwort?” It was so dark inside that he almost didn’t see her. But then the shadows moved, and her eyes glowed red for an instant. She was alone. Where most of the goblins craved companionship and wanted to share their dwellings, Mudwort preferred solitude. They were alike that way, at least, Mudwort and Direfang.
“Was sleeping, Direfang.”
“Not in the storm. The storm woke everyone.” His eyes began to distinguish between the shadows, and he realized the floor of her home was not level like all the others. It was a bowl-shaped depression that was dug a few feet deep. That was why the walls outside were so short, her home was dug halfway into the earth. Inside, Mudwort could stand and raise her hands up and still not touch her ceiling.
Inside it was dry.
Direfang crawled in.
Mudwort puffed out her chest. “Direfang brings in the rain,” she sneered.
He smelled the muskiness of her and the richness of the earth too. He also smelled an assortment of herbs she’d gathered and was drying along one wall. Folded next to them was a tunic on a leather satchel, and a small pouch Direfang knew was filled with sapphires taken from the same dwarven village where Graytoes had found her baby. There was a polished wood cup and a few other small items that were inconsequential yet comprised Mudwort’s treasure.
He sat opposite her, discovering the bowl was deep enough that he did not have to hunch his shoulders.
“The city, Mudwort, is-”
“In pieces. Saw it fall. Saw the wind take the roofs and knock down the walls.” She shook her head and put on a sad face, though Direfang suspected her expression was ingenuous. “But saw Graytoes and Umay find shelter. Saw Grallik and Sully and-”
“Grallik lives with Sully.” Direfang had forced the wizard upon the hobgoblins, wanting him closely watched and at the same wanting him kept safe.
“The house of Sully, though not done, is not undone,” Mudwort finished saying. “Did not see a goblin hurt. Not hurt bad. Just the buildings.” She puffed out a breath, blowing dirt around Direfang’s knees. “The storm was not so bad then, Direfang.”
He intended to ask her how she saw the storm wreak such havoc when she was apparently inside, dry in her bowl. But he saw her fingers were dirty, and when he looked especially close, he noticed indentations in the earth where her fingers had been digging. She’d used her magic to watch it all.
“No, the storm was not horrible. But the homes were.” He craned his neck this way and that, looking at the sturdy construction of Mudwort’s little house.
“Built bad, most of them were,” Mudwort agreed.
“But not this one.”
She grinned wide.
He didn’t say anything for a while, listening instead to the soft patter of the rain against the roof and the slap of goblin feet, as well as the muted curses of those who had lost their homes. A gust of wind brought a little rain inside, wetting his back. It added a fresh scent that he breathed deeply.
“But not this one,” he repeated. “In the before time, Mudwort”-that was what they had called the time previous to their capture and enslavement by the Dark Knights-“did your clan live in homes like this? In the foothills of Neraka by the river branch?” He knew a little of where she had come from before being captured by ogres and subsequently sold. But she was secretive and didn’t speak much of herself or her past.
She shook her head. “Lived in caves,” she said.
“Where did Mudwort see such a home as this and know how to build such a thing?”
Her eyes clouded.
“Where, Mudwort?”
She dropped her chin to her chest, so she didn’t have to look him in the eyes.
“Mudwort.”
“In the earth,” she said finally, blowing out another breath and stirring the dirt. A goblin ran by the entrance to her home, throwing mud up behind his feet. Another chased him, dangling a shrunken elf head from his hand: just younglings playing. “Looking through the earth. Saw a clan with homes like this, a clan from a long while ago. Decided this home should look the same as one of those from long ago.”