That must be it. “The earth is mad.” Mudwort thumped her knee against the ground. “Nothing. See nothing.”
Direfang and Grallik, Qel and Orvago? The latter both odd-looking and easy to spot. But she couldn’t see them no matter how hard she concentrated.
“Forget them,” she decided. She grinned broadly and spiraled her senses out farther, no longer interested in the goblins and their earth bowls that her mind couldn’t see and instead intent on finding Chislev’s lost weapon. It wasn’t so horribly far away-she’d sensed that earlier-not so far that she couldn’t reach it in a long day’s walk. That’s why she’d approved Direfang’s plan to build the goblin city on the bluff. She did not want them going farther south and taking her farther away from her prize.
“Where?” she hissed. “Where? Where? Where?” The spear had been easy to find before, its power tugging her. “Find it. Do not let thoughts of Direfang distract. Think of only the spear.” She couldn’t say how long her mind ranged through the forest, several long minutes certainly, judging that the sun was higher and was cutting through the branches of the half-dead oak and had started to burn her shoulders.
“There. There is the thing Chislev does not care about.” The spear had a pulse, she finally realized, like a living thing, though she knew it wasn’t living. The pulse was waves of magical energy. The pulse was at the same time soothing and jarring, and she sat motionless for a while, letting the waves ripple through her.
The god had been stupid to leave such a thing behind. And the ancient shaman who had discovered it … why had she left it? What had become of her? Mudwort rose and stretched and rubbed her legs, which had become sore from lingering in one position for so long. She continued to focus on the energy of the spear, envisioning a thread between her and it.
One thought only: Follow the thread and gain the spear.
“Find it.”
Then what?
Return to Direfang’s infant city.
Then what?
She’d puzzle that out later.
Mudwort glided along to the rhythm she felt in the pulse of the magic, fingers trailing down to twirl in the tops of patches of saw grass then across tickly reeds and cattails growing along a thin stream. She closed her eyes at one point, picturing the connection between her and the spear as a glowing, wonderful string that continued to pull her farther from bossy Direfang and the horde of smelly, chattering goblins, ever closer to her wonderful prize. Her toes sank into the stream bank, and she vaguely registered the cool, agreeable sensation. She felt the brittle vines of dead flowers and the smooth ones of those living, inhaled deep the sweet scent and held it.
She should have left the others days before to pursue her goal, shouldn’t have dug so many bowls while the spear waited for her. She’d worked only as hard as she did because of Direfang, her closest-perhaps only-friend. She felt some loyalty to him and believed she owed him something since he rescued her from crumbling Steel Town.
Maybe that debt was paid finally, and maybe she’d leave them all behind forever once she had the spear. She would have to endure no more press of dirt-caked, sweat-reeking goblins and hobgoblins, no more stares from the half-elf wizard who craved magic. It would be just her and the forest and all of its good smells.
And Chislev’s spear.
She opened her eyes when her foot caught on something. Glancing down, she spotted a bony arm ending in things that looked like fingers but were not quite fingers. Strings of dried muscles held the bony arm together. The sight almost caused her to lose her thread of thought. Concentrating, she kicked at the bone and discovered it was thick and long and probably had belonged to a bear or a creature as big as one.
A bloodrager? Hardly a trace of flesh on it, the forest scavengers had picked it clean, just the few strings of muscle that looked as hardened as the bones. It could make a useful tool, so she picked it up and shook it until what had been its paw fell free.
Mudwort wrapped her fingers around the bony arm, just as she intended to wrap her fingers around the spear. She carried it as she cut across a plot of trillium, imagining the bone was her magical spear. That made it easier to concentrate on the pulse and to block out everything else. She even managed to push away the shushing of the wind-jostled leaves and the musical chitter of the little birds nesting overhead. She ignored the play of the soft breeze against her face and the still-burning heat of the sun on her shoulders as she stepped under gaps in the canopy.
Then, all of a sudden, fingers dug into her arms and lifted her, snapping the wavelength that connected her to Chislev’s spear. In her surprise she dropped the bone, which her captor immediately slammed his heel on and broke. At first she thought Direfang had somehow followed her and was bringing her back to dig more bowls. But after a heartbeat she realized Direfang would not have been so violent and hurtful, would not have ruined the bone, and would have said something nice to her.
She kicked furiously, and twisted this way and that to see which offending hobgoblin had dared to disturb her. Or perhaps it was that pesky gnoll Orvago.
“S’dard!” she snarled. “Fool! Ignorant gnoll!”
“It’s a small one,” the human voice shot back. “Can’t tell if it’s young.”
She twisted harder and managed a glance over her shoulder. The sun glinted off the plate armor of a Dark Knight, practically blinding her. Her heart seized and she fought for breath. Dark Knights here? So far from Steel Town and Neraka? Not possible! Where was she?
But it was not a dream. The mailed fingers felt like rock shards digging into her flesh.
“S’dard!” she cried.
She should not have left Direfang and the others. She should have stayed and dug more bowls. She should have looked for the spear later.
“And a feisty one.”
She should have come after the spear later, after more work was done, when she would have been safe.
“Take care that it does not bite you,” a second voice said. “We’ve no healer with us. Remember, goblins carry disease.”
She should have searched with Sully or Gnasher or even with the damnable wizard … with someone who might have watched her back and seen the knights coming. Coming from where? Why?
“Aye, Tannen, I’d not want to catch some malady from this pitiful thing.”
Mudwort understood most of their words, having listened to the knights at Steel Town and more recently studying the language of Grallik. The words burned in her belly. She hated Dark Knights more than anything. What were they doing in these woods? Why hadn’t she stayed to dig more bowls? She needed to be free!
The knight squeezed her arms even tighter, the pain becoming everything and nearly making her pass out. Then he eased his grip and shook her, as if she were some little carcass a mongrel dog had gotten a firm hold of.
“It has clothes, Tannen. It might be one of them.”
“If it is one of them, we’ll be looking at a promotion.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her captor shake his head and utter a word she took as a curse. “Not for only one of them, a promotion. We’ll need to find a big goblin nest.”
The second knight stepped in front of Mudwort, his black tabard filling her vision. She had to look up to take him all in. He didn’t wear a helmet, and his black hair was slicked back against the sides of his sweaty face as if he’d oiled it. His skin was the color of milk, though his nose was rosy from the sun. She thought his eyes too small, reminding her of those of a pig, and there were little lines around them, suggesting he had some age to him.
“Maybe she’ll take us to a big nest after all.”