“I’ve been looking for you.” She sucked in a great gulp of air and tried to catch her breath. “I need to …” Qel put her hand to her temple again, trying to hold back the throbbing in her head.
Orvago settled next to the stone spire, his head coming up to the top of it. “You need to what, Sister Qel?”
Up there the construction sounds were not so loud, and she could hear the river below. She slowed her breathing.
“I need to … I’d thought this important,” she said. Qel didn’t sit, despite his gesture that she should join him. She stood in front of him, shifting back and forth on her heels. She crossed her arms and thrust her hands beneath her armpits. It was a nervous gesture she’d never managed to shake. “I thought leaving Schallsea Island and joining the goblins was a calling.”
He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand, reminding her of how a dog in one of the island’s lyceums used to scratch its jaw.
“I’d never known a place beyond the island, Orvago. I was raised there since I was a child, an infant. Left there, I was told, by a passing ship’s captain.”
Orvago raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.
“I thought I should see something of the world beyond the island. Some of the others agreed. You did too. Remember? You told me it was a good notion.”
The gnoll continued to regard her. She uncrossed her arms and swung them slowly at her sides.
“But I miss the company of …” She paused and drew her lips into a narrow line.
“Humans?” he finished for her.
She nodded. “I guess. I guess that’s it. I love you, Orvago. And you’re my only friend here. I-”
“-can make other friends,” he said. “You’re wrong. The goblins seem to like you.”
She closed her eyes, waited a moment, and willed herself to stand still. “Some of them like me, I think. And I don’t mind helping them, mending their wounds and tending to the pregnant ones. They are neither good nor evil, and I had expected them to be evil. They simply are.” She opened her eyes and let out a hissing breath as she looked to the sky. A small flock of dark blue birds was dipping down toward the river before disappearing into the pines on the other side. “I miss the island and the buildings and the people, Orvago. I miss climbing the Silver Stair. This work is important, I keep telling myself that. It really is important. It’s not that I mind the goblins. Despite everything, I really don’t mind them. They’re not the monsters I thought. But I don’t like this, being here, being away. Not at all.”
The gnoll rested back on his hands and craned his head up so he was looking directly overhead. “Schallsea Island is beautiful,” he admitted after a few minutes. “Nature sculpted by man. And at the same time nature left to flow its own course. The Singing Creak, the Tilawa Brook, the Pekun Stream.”
“The Zephyr Brook,” she added with a wistful smile. “Musical, that one, a never-ending song.”
“And the Mannewa River. Not quite as long as this nameless river, I would think. And a younger river, straighter and faster and impetuous. This one flows like an old man, wandering one way and then the next, taking its time to get where it’s going. But you know, I think I like this river better.”
She paced in a tight circle around him and ended with her back to the river. “The Barren Hills fill the center of Schallsea, reaching practically from one end to the other like the spine of a gentle sea beast rising from the water. I had to walk the length of them one summer. It was a very hot summer.”
They listened to the river and the construction sounds. From somewhere overhead came the shrill cry of a hunting bird.
“Schallsea is but an infant compared to these ancient woods,” the gnoll said. “It was a hilly plateau between mountain chains until the Cataclysm changed the world and the Newsea flooded so much that it formed our island home.”
“I know … and I miss it sorely,” she admitted.
“And you do not want the goblins to know this?”
“No, I don’t.” She turned to face the river. “No weakness. Showing weakness in front of them would not be good.” Tears filled the corners of her eyes. “But I am weak, Orvago. I do miss Schallsea. Maybe I was too young to leave. This is not so grand an adventure as I thought it would be.”
The gnoll’s face was unreadable.
“And I should not have talked to you about this. I should have kept my problems to myself.”
Something splashed in the river below, and the faint laughter of goblin children drifted up the bluff.
“I should not have-”
“You thought yourself an orphan, Qel. But you had family, on Schallsea. You can have family here too.”
“No. I want to go home, Orvago.”
GOBLIN HUNTERS
Zeff tossed the goblin into the center of the Dark Knight camp. It landed with a thud near the fire. Conversations instantly stopped and all eyes were on the wide-eyed creature that shook so hard in fear that its teeth clacked together.
Three more goblins followed, but they were corpses.
Bera and Zocci were on their feet, striding through the men toward the goblin, staring down on it and making it cower all the more.
“Commander.” Zeff was not a tall knight, but he looked imposing, even as haggard as he was from a long day’s march to reach the camp. Uncustomary stubble grew on his ruddy face, which he rubbed before snapping to attention. On first glance he looked thickset, but it was muscle, not fat, and it seemed more pronounced because of the armor. “We found four of them at first light this morning. A hunting party, obviously, they all carried crude spears. This one …” He indicated the one still breathing, “had clothes, looks like they belonged to a human child. Definitely stolen.”
“So a Steel Town goblin.” Bera bent to take a closer look at the captive.
It was hard to determine the color of its hide: gray or brown, she guessed, though it was so filthy, it probably could have been green under all of that. About two and a half feet tall, the little goblin had knobby wrists and ankles, like Isaam, she mused, and it had a small potbelly that could have been from lack of food. The three corpses looked similar.
The live one’s eyes were dark and fixed on hers. Its nose wiggled and the snot rivulets that ran from it gleamed in the firelight. The creature wore a shirt that at one time was pink or rose-colored. Tiny hearts and flowers were embroidered in darker thread along the collar and sleeves. The image of a kitten had been embroidered on the front, but the threads were so worn and torn that only half of the face was recognizable. It was clearly a human child’s garment.
“Good work, Zeff, Artis,” she said, nodding to the latter, a young knight who stood behind Zeff. Two more knights moved out from behind them, and Bera gestured that they should join the rest of the men for the evening meal. She never took her gaze off the goblin. “Creature,” she began. “You will tell me-”
Zeff cleared his throat. “Commander, we determined that this goblin does not understand the common tongue.
There was the softest of conversations from a group of knights who sat farthest from the fire. Mugs clinked, and she could hear men eating. Most of the knights were quiet, though, intent on what was transpiring. But there were so many knights, there was never complete silence in the camp.
“None of us know its foul language,” Zeff continued. “Dwarvish, I speak that; but the goblin is clueless there too. None of the goblins could understand us. We killed three of them in the trying.” He shook his head in frustration. “We couldn’t make any sense out of their gibberish. And we brought the bodies in case Isaam wanted to try to speak to them. We know he can talk to the dead sometimes.”
Bera looked even closer and discovered the cowering goblin was missing the toes on its right foot, and that the stumps had been cauterized. There were more burn marks on its legs, and its left arm was broken. She saw a jagged cut on the side of its neck, all evidence that her men had questioned the creature for some time and gained nothing. Despite the strong odor of the deer and the sweat-stained clothing of her men, she could smell the stench of the goblin, the urine that had run down its legs, its burned hair and skin, crusted blood. Her mouth was filled with the venison she’d just finished eating, her stomach threatening to bring it up.