“Qel didn’t get a long look.”
She shook her head ruefully. “No, I guess I didn’t.”
“Probably no dragons or bloodragers on Schallsea. One good thing about Qel’s island, no beasts there. Life is easier, probably. But easy isn’t always the best way.” He sighed, apparently waiting for her to say something. After a few moments of silence, he continued. “Some think Qel was sent to spy on the city and to report back. Was sent to watch everyone. Some of the others talk about that. Not me. But I heard talk.”
“No. We’ve discussed this before. Yesterday.”
“And the day before that and before that,” he added.
“I wasn’t a spy.” But Qel would have plenty to tell the healers on the island, namely that the goblins and hobgoblins were not stupid. And they were not evil, though she couldn’t necessarily call them all good souls. They spoke a little primitively, but that was just their language. She figured Gralin was as smart as any young human; the hobgoblin simply looked at the world through different eyes.
Kind eyes, she thought after a moment. They’d not seen some of the horrors Direfang and Mudwort and Graytoes had witnessed. Qel mentally went over some of the events and incidents she would report to the healers. She intended to tell them about the dwarf baby too, not that anyone on Schallsea Island could do anything about it. Umay festered at the back of her mind.
“Umay,” she said.
“It means hope.” Gralin stood on his toes and tugged at a bulbous, yellow-skinned fruit. It had knobs on it, looking like a puffer fish. He took a bite and found it acceptable then stretched a hand up and tugged one free for Qel. “Hope, hopeful, a promise for the future. That is what the name stands for. Graytoes wants the baby to have a good, hopeful, important life.”
She stopped herself from arguing about the child. She’d exhausted herself on several of the other goblins and hobgoblins-and Orvago-trying to tell them they ought to find a family in the mountains, a dwarf family, to take the baby. Returning the child to her real mother was probably impossible, she knew. Arguing the subject with Gralin would be equally pointless. Maybe she should have taken Umay with her, so the healers on Schallsea could find the baby a proper mother of its own race.
“Well?” He’d asked her something and she’d missed it.
“Sorry. What?”
“Qel? What does Qel mean?”
“I don’t know. It probably doesn’t mean anything.” He stopped in his tracks and faced her. “No. Names mean something. It must mean something.”
“The healers on the island named me Qel.”
“For a reason.”
“I never asked.” She paused. “But I will. When I get home, I will ask.”
“Gralin means little and lively,” he said, resuming the trek and his chatter. “Like Qel, never knew parents, just the clan. Neacha’s father picked the name Gralin. Sounds good, eh? Means something-little, lively.” He added a bounce to his step to prove his point and tried to catch a dragonfly buzzing past.
They waded through a thin creek and skirted a pond dotted with lily pads. Gralin paused a moment to watch a fist-sized bullfrog’s throat balloon and sound a deep croak. When the frog plopped into the water, the hobgoblin continued west.
“This forest is a good, big place, Qel. The city will be a good home. Why do you want to go back to Schallsea Island? Why go back when there is still so much … world … to see?”
“Homesick.” She spoke the word in the common tongue. There was no goblin word that meant the same thing as far as she could tell. “I miss Schallsea Island more than I thought I ever could. I miss it so much, there’s an ache inside my heart.”
“But does Schallsea miss Qel?”
“I-”
“Does Schallsea need Qel? Plenty of healers there, eh? This nation needs Qel. A good healer, Qel is.”
“I-”
“Better find out what the name Qel means.” He swiped at another dragonfly and skipped over a fallen log. She noticed he wasn’t really trying to catch the insect.
“I’m homesick, Gralin,” she repeated.
He shrugged and pressed ahead of her, using his big hands to part the bushes and tall fronds, hopping here and there to act out the meaning of his name. She had to hurry to catch up. He chattered about the birds and the flowers and the stink of something that had died nearby. He asked her more questions, but she didn’t answer, staying focused on walking quickly and not tripping over roots and rotting branches.
“Too quiet,” Gralin said after an hour or so had passed.
Qel shivered and looked around. There were plenty of birds in the branches, and she spotted a gray squirrel scampering up the trunk of a half-dead maple. The bird sounds were soft, but she’d not noticed a change to alert her to a predator.
“Without Rustymane, it’s too quiet on this walk,” he continued. “Qel stopped talking. Without Qel talking, it is too quiet round here. Rustymane does not talk much. But Rustymane snorts a lot. Sounds likes snores, eh? Maybe Qel should talk more about Schallsea so it is not so quiet. Maybe Qel should talk about how much Schallsea needs one more healer-needs a healer more than Direfang’s entire city does.”
He waited for her to say something, and when she didn’t, he wiped the back of his hand on his mouth and walked even faster.
“Maybe we should go back,” she said suddenly. “The ocean is not much farther.” He stopped and sniffed the air. “Smelling it now. Salt. Not far now at all.”
“I’ve been thinking, Gralin.”
“Took a long time to think, eh? Took days to think.”
“I’ve been thinking about something you said.”
“About being needed?”
“Yes, about Schallsea Island not needing one more healer.” She nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should give it another try, staying here. Do you think you could find the way back to the … city? I’m wholly lost. Completely. Utterly. Hopelessly. We’ve been gone, what … four days? Five?”
He turned and counted on his fingers. “Rustymane left three days ago. Been gone five. No, six-that’s why the ocean is so close.” He set his knuckles against his hips and regarded her for a moment. “Direfang’s city will not be hard to find. Turn around, go back the way we came. We can do that.”
“You’d have to go back anyway, to Direfang’s city,” she said. “After leaving me at the beach, you’d have to turn around and-”
“Walk six more days. Don’t mind walking.”
“So we should start back now.”
“Before Qel changes her mind again.”
He bobbed his way forward, angling toward the southeast. “It is a good place, this forest. And it is good that it is not too quiet anymore. It is even better that Direfang’s city has not lost a good healer.”
Qel sucked in her lower lip and followed him. I am homesick, she mouthed. “I miss Schallsea.”
“It will still be there,” he told her. “When Qel is older and is not needed so much here.” Then he took two more steps and pitched forward, arrows protruding from his neck and back.
Qel screamed and dropped to her knees, crawling forward and casting her head this way and that, trying to see who was responsible.
Elves? They’d heard from the Skinweavers that some elves had been returning to the Qualinesti Forest.
Who? Where? But she was too low to see very well, the ground cover so thick, it looked like walls of green closing her in.
“Gralin?” she whispered.
There was no answer.
She heard the soft rustle of leaves, a little too loud for it to be the breeze, followed by clear words: “Did you kill it?”