Perhaps she should have stayed to take care of Umay, to keep her out of danger; Direfang had told her to stay. Orvago had stayed. She’d heard the gnoll tell Direfang that he was better at protecting and defending and healing. It was not his place to go on the attack.
“My nature will not allow me to pick sides, Foreman Direfang,” he’d said. “But I will fight to save these goblins on the bluff. I will stay here and do my best to hold the bluff.”
Graytoes could have stayed with Orvago. Horace had stayed too. The Skull Man was broken and resting, tending wounded goblins when he’d briefly revive. Horace wasn’t a Dark Knight any longer, so Graytoes decided that she could finally like him. Graytoes could have stayed with Horace and helped with the wounded.
But Graytoes was curious above all else, and in truth she prided herself on being part of Direfang’s army. With Umay strapped to her back in the leather pack, she still could use her hands to fight well. She carried a long knife in one; she thought it was the weapon Direfang had dropped after gaining the magnificent axe. Because it had been Direfang’s, she knew it was fine and strong and would be enough to protect her and Umay.
Jando-Jando had gone ahead of her and was probably very near the front of the war party. She worried he might fall to a Dark Knight. Jando-Jando was not as good a fighter as she. Graytoes didn’t love him like she’d loved Moon-eye, though she thought perhaps with time she might. But Graytoes didn’t want to be without a mate again, which was the main reason she followed the thousands of goblins through the woods, looking for Jando-Jando. She thought that if she were near him during the fighting, he wouldn’t die. She’d not been near Moon-eye when he’d died. Watching over Jando-Jando would give her some purpose. And it was an excuse not to remain on the bluff.
Besides, there was a little magic in her, and she could join it with Draath’s and maybe Olag’s if she could find them in the melee. She wished Thya and Mudwort had not left the city. Their magic was very strong, and it was easier to mingle her magic with theirs. The female stonetellers brought out the best in Graytoes.
Mudwort, especially, made the magic simple. But Draath was good too, she thought. She didn’t like to look at the tiny elf heads strapped to his belt, and she didn’t want to touch his fingers; she pictured them pulling the skin loose from elf skulls. But she could work some spells with Draath when she closed her eyes. Together, they could help defeat the knights and thereby help Direfang. Graytoes hated Dark Knights more than she hated anything else. She hoped there were a few elves among the enemy so Draath and Sallor and their kinsmen could add to their disgusting collection. But she would not watch them do it.
Umay slept blithely, despite Graytoes’s rushing over uneven ground, jumping knobby roots, and sometimes being jostled by goblins who raced near her and faster and occasionally pushed her out of the way. Umay slept although she was probably hungry. In all the confusion and activity, Graytoes hadn’t fed her.
“Win for Umay,” Graytoes told herself. “Beat the Dark Knights. Kill all Dark Knights. Then go back and milk a goat and feed Umay. Bathe Umay, and sing an old song Moon-eye liked.”
Graytoes liked the forest, despite the bloodragers and the dragon and other dangers, and she wanted Umay to grow up in the nice, green place. Not on the bluff, though; there’d been too much death there. The ground was tainted with all the blood from dead goblins and Dark Knights. Nothing good could grow on such terribly tainted ground. Graytoes decided that after all the Dark Knights were dead, she would have a long talk with Direfang. The goblins must build a city somewhere else. Along that same river, fine, but somewhere else, not within sight of the tainted ground.
She would build a fine earth bowl home with Jando-Jando, one better than even what Mudwort had made. She could use her own magic to do the digging, and together they’d make it a large home so Umay would have lots of room to grow up in. Maybe they would put a wall inside of it, dividing up the space, the kind of innovation that Qel was rumored to have in her home. Then Umay could have her own space when she got a little bigger.
“Graytoes loves Umay very much,” she said.
Graytoes had been running for a while before she noticed things changing around her. Ground animals were scampering through goblin legs, all of them racing in the opposite direction, toward the south, tripping over each other and exposed roots-running for the sake of running, she thought. Larger animals-deer and boars and maybe bigger things by the thrashing-also rushed through the woods. All of them hurried away from where the goblins headed. Maybe they were afraid of the coming confrontation. Maybe the battle ahead was too fierce.
But Graytoes quickly realized they were afraid of something worse. She well knew what fire smelled like; she’d been around plenty of goblin funeral pyres in the past weeks and had smelled the fire spewed by the volcanoes when they escaped from Steel Town. And she’d been close enough to Grallik’s fire spells plenty of times. Something in the forest was burning, and it had frightened the animals and was frightening her too. But the goblins running ahead and all around her had not turned back toward the bluff; they still charged after Direfang.
“What to do, Umay? What to do?” Graytoes fell behind. She watched the others ahead of her weave through the trunks and underbrush, weapons on their belts thunking against their thighs, their feet slapping against the ground.
The ground felt drier than it had before. Graytoes had never cared for shoes; her calloused feet were tough enough for any terrain, but the ground was parched. The air was drier too and carried the fire scent. Wood burned. The forest cried for water. Looking up, she thought she saw the edges of a cloud stretching over her. But it wasn’t a rain cloud; the cloud was smoke.
Graytoes dropped to her knees, jarring Umay and waking her. The baby made a cooing sound and wriggled slightly in the pack. “Not much magic inside this heart, but maybe there is just enough.” Graytoes thrust her fingers into the desiccated ground, remembering everything Mudwort had taught her. “Must warn Orvago about the fire. Orvago must get the younglings to safety.” If nothing else, the druid could invoke rain and put out the fire, she thought.
Her senses raced through the earth and found their way back to the bluff. She felt the goblin bodies on the hard ground there-sitting, resting, sleeping, the younglings playing. All of them were oblivious to the coming threat. Their forms felt like a pressing weight against her senses and made it more difficult for her to breathe. She felt a greater weight then, and knew it was either a hobgoblin or Orvago. The gnoll, she decided, as she tried to mentally communicate with him.
“Orvago, please listen. Danger comes. Listen.”
Graytoes tried harder than she ever had before with the magic, but nothing worked or felt right. When she got no response from the gnoll, she tried to talk to the goblins and hobgoblins there, but none of them were stonetellers, so they couldn’t hear her call. Not even Horace could hear her; his was not the right kind of magic. She felt him sleeping on the ground, and not even her mental shouts could wake him.
“Mudwort.” Mudwort had to be somewhere in the woods. “And Thya.” They were so magical that they would respond to her pitiful efforts and come to help. And if they were too far away and couldn’t come fast enough to help, she could warn them about the fire so at least they could be safe. She sent her mind searching to the west then to the north. She felt the thousands of goblin feet; Direfang’s army was approaching the Dark Knights. They couldn’t be oblivious to the fire, could they? Was the worst of the fire behind the ones in front, was that it?
“Be fast.” It was a cry that often accompanied the goblins into a fight. “Be fast.” But she used it to spur her senses on.