“Done nothing. Qel would have done nothing.” Graytoes turned slightly away from the young human healer, pointedly ignoring her. She resumed singing until the ballad was finished, then she dribbled water in the baby’s coarse, black hair and twirled her fingers in it to gently massage the scalp.
“Beautiful Umay,” Graytoes said. She rocked forward and picked up the baby, wrapped her in a blanket, and held her close. “Graytoes’s Umay.”
The baby giggled and smiled.
“You stole her.” Qel’s voice had a gentle but distinctly accusatory tone. “I had not paid enough attention. With hundreds and hundreds of goblins, thousands, so much to do and look after, arriving in this forest, I simply did not notice or realize. But now I know. You should not have this child.”
Graytoes clutched the baby with one arm, and with her free hand pointed to her stomach. “There was a baby in here, Qel. Moon-eye’s baby. Graytoes’s baby. The Dark Knights killed that baby. Maybe the Dark Knights killed Moon-eye too. The Dark Knights kill everything. Now this is Graytoes’s baby. Umay, a good, good name. It means hope.” After a moment, she added, “This baby was not stolen. And never will be stolen.”
Qel touched Graytoes’s shoulder. The goblin shrugged off her hand. She made gurgling noises to Umay and scooted away when Qel touched her again.
“Qel, leave Graytoes alone. That is Graytoes’s baby.” Direfang stood over them, having approached so quietly that Qel hadn’t heard him. “Umay could not have a better mother.”
“The one you call Umay is a dwarf,” Qel said, rising to face Direfang. She had to look up catch his eyes. Qel edged around Graytoes so she could again see the baby, who continued to coo and giggle. “I had not been told earlier of the baby’s kidnapping.”
Direfang growled. “If that matter is such a bother, leave this city.”
Graytoes smiled at the words in her defense, but it was clear that Direfang was bluffing. Without Qel, broken limbs would not be mended; more goblins might die. He was posturing and Qel squared her shoulders and tipped her chin up higher in defiance. Graytoes pretended to pay no attention to them.
“The way to the beach is not difficult to find, Qel. Follow the river, and use whatever magic is necessary to find a ship and get back to Schallsea Island,” he continued. “Go if you must. Tell the healers there about this city.”
The healer glared at him, the hard expression ill suited to her otherwise soft features. “I suppose the baby cannot be returned to her home.”
Graytoes hummed softly, trying to mimic the song of a bluebird perched overhead.
“Listen to me, Qel. The baby has a good mother. Graytoes keeps Umay safe. And the baby is home.”
Qel crossed and uncrossed her arms then grabbed her tunic with her fingers, as if needing something to do with her hands. “I had thought perhaps it was an orphan, that baby, a straggler you picked up like Grallik N’sera and like the priest who remained on Schallsea when we left.”
“Horace.”
She nodded. “Yes, Horace, the big priest of Zeboim.”
Graytoes hummed faster then abruptly stopped. The bluebird flew away. It was common knowledge that Direfang preferred Horace over Qel. “Horace knows goblinspeak,” Graytoes said softly. “Wished Horace would have stayed with the goblin army and Qel would have stayed on her island.”
“What?” Qel asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Go back to that island, Qel,” Graytoes said louder. “Tell Horace to come here instead. Horace would not say such bad things about beautiful Umay.”
Qel shook her head. “A straggler, I thought the baby was an orphan, Foreman Direfang, and-”
“It is good Graytoes does not share your intolerance of other creatures,” Direfang said. “Graytoes loves Umay … even though Umay is a dwarf. And Umay seems to love Graytoes. There is a lesson there, Qel. And there will be no more talk of Graytoes or Umay.” He spun on the balls of his feet and headed toward the home of Sully and Rustymane.
“It is not intolerance that so festers in me,” Qel whispered. She spoke in the common tongue, and Graytoes could not understand more than a few words. “This is theft, a heinous crime to take that baby from her mother. The baby will grieve as it grows, and its mother will grieve forever. I never knew my mother.” The healer stared down at Graytoes, who continued to fuss over the baby, and finally she followed Direfang.
The hobgoblins’ home was one of the first finished using Mudwort’s design, and it was one of the tallest built so it could accommodate Rustymane and Sully and the recently arrived hobgoblin brothers Gralin and Neacha. Qel paused outside, having seen Direfang crouch and go through the entrance. They were talking in the goblin tongue, and she eavesdropped briefly. Sully was worried about food, and Rustymane and Direfang echoed his concern. Gralin and Neacha volunteered to establish regular hunting groups.
She thought about joining the hobgoblins in the discussion and took a step toward the doorway. There were several things she wanted to talk to Direfang about, and finding him alone had proved impossible lately.
“Later,” Qel decided. “When I am cooler and my thoughts are not so troubled by a baby dwarf.”
She padded away, glancing from hut to hut as she went, only a fraction of them finished. She couldn’t see how far the city extended, as clump birches and wide trunks blocked many of the buildings, and the site spread down the next rise.
It would take a long time to build enough homes for all the goblins there … and for the goblins she suspected would join them. She could hardly smell the forest for all the goblins. They had a mustiness about them that, while bearable, was certainly unpleasant.
The sounds of construction filled the air, the noise of hammers and axes and the constant buzz of goblin conversations birthing a headache that settled firmly above her right eye. Qel reached a hand up and massaged her temple, finding that only added to the aching.
“Damn me for coming here,” Qel cursed herself. “Damn me for not thinking this through. Impetuous fool!”
It wasn’t just the dwarf baby that bothered her. She was so terribly out of place. She walked past a goblin trio, all of them with mud-brown skin and one with a malformed foot. They chattered as they smoothed the inside of a depression, trying to make it larger and deeper. All of them paused and gawked at her when she stopped to watch them.
“Damn impetuous fool.” She stomped away as one of the goblins pointed a finger and laughed.
A youngling with yellow skin rushed toward her and tugged on her skirt. It jabbered so quickly, she had trouble picking out the words. It was merely talking about squirrels that were scampering in a big oak and wanting her to watch them.
“That’s nice,” she told it. “But I’m busy.” She spoke in Common, not bothering to pick through her mind to find the goblin words. She’d used her magic to learn their language, pulling the rudiments of it from her friend Orvago and planting them in her own mind. “Run now and watch them some more, the silly squirrels.”
Her frown sent it scurrying back to its clan members. She adopted a quicker pace, hoping to avoid more goblin encounters, while meandering through the growing city and searching. There was activity everywhere-goblins carrying wood, from logs that had them straining under the weight, to clumps of twigs that would be woven into roofs. On a patch of sandy ground, a few female goblins had corralled a group of younglings; it looked like a school of sorts. Even the eldest worked, most of them in a circle scraping at the undersides of animal hides.
“There. Thank the gods.” She fairly ran toward him.
Orvago stood on the highest point of the bluff, near the artful rock that Direfang had planted. He was staring down at the river, oblivious to her approach.
She brushed by a goblin asking her to treat his rash and hurried up the bluff. She yelled and waved, and he crooked his head and raised a pawlike hand.